Here is this one to start us off. Do let me know in the comments what you liked and what you didn't.

On with the show.

=][=
I adjusted my gas mask so it sat more securely against my skin, dampening the ever-present effluvia of putrefied synthetic meat products, pickling vaguely vegetable-like organic slurry, and the occasional corpse. A few breaths did not serve to fully vanish the ever-shifting bouquet, and considering I’d replaced the filters last night, this meant the seals were shot. I'd have to see if I could patch them, if I couldn’t I’d be forced to buy new ones. I pulled in a shallow, putrid breath; preferably soon.

I kicked an empty box aside and scanned the seemingly infinite hills of stacked up trash that made up my domain, spotting the next thing that looked promising. I squelched my way to a fridge laying doors down. Crouching next to it I slipped my gloved hands under its edge and with a heave and a grunt, tipped it on its side. The fridge’s door popped open, and a slurry of gelatinous organic matter and water spilled out around my legs with something bigger that flopped to the ground.

Turning to inspect it, I saw it had once been a person, or at least most of one. The body parts didn’t quite add up.

Sifting through the mess I saw what looked to be the thoroughly ruined remnants of a business suit, two cyber arms, and a lot of cabling. The Netrunner that had ended up in the fridge in front of me had some extensive modifications. Looked like both arms and the majority of his upper torso.

Pulling out my trusty screw drivers and getting to work, I saw that a not insignificant chunk of the modifications were heatsink and cooling systems. I could see a smaller heart and synthetic lungs in there, obviously high quality, but the bioware bits they’d integrated had long rotted away, so they were utterly ruined.

Looking through the corpse’s clothing, I did not see a wallet or any kind of identification. 

Shrugging, I picked up the head and gave it the good once over. My intention had been to plug in my interface port using a mostly isolated partition of my basic cyberdeck and run a diagnostic on whatever the fuck this guy had, but the brain matter slurry made me decide against that.

Looking around the dead man’s headware, I found the slot for his cyberdeck, it was covered up and sealed tight, but that was nothing that injudicious application of a knife and screwdriver couldn’t fix.

Man, it was a good thing I had managed to put together the Eddies for my cheapo hazmat suit, otherwise my dumpster diving would be a lot more unpleasant.

+The trash in the Municipal Landfill is the property of Night City.+ The intercom distantly pointed out. +To steal from the Landfill is to steal from Night City.+

“Yeah yeah, fuck off.” I muttered as I managed to tear the covering off the back of the guy’s head and cracked the semi-spongy skull open. Shaking my gloves clean and pulling out some tweezers, I removed brain matter until I could extricate the cyberdeck and held it up in front of my goggles.

It had the NetWatch logo on it.

I looked back down to the dead man, at his arms and torso.

This was, perhaps, the singularly best find I’d ever had, if I could fix it up I’d definitely use it, if not, someone would want what was left of it and would pay top Eddies for it. It went straight to a ziplock baggie and vanished into the special zipper in my salvage bag, after some consideration, I nabbed the right arm, drained it, shook it mostly clean, wiped it down with a good old tactical paper towel and stuck it in my bag too.

The bag slowly filled up over the next few hours. Broken Agents, the odd engine part, cracked, smudged, or broken scopes, laser sights and reflex sights. I even ran into another corpo body, most of his head was missing but his bank-shard was not, and it had two thousand Eddies, so that guy singularly paid for the upgraded BD wreaths my little brother and I needed for school.

He'd also had a briefcase; I most certainly didn't know the combination but wedging it in place and applying a knife and a crowbar worked as an adequate substitute.

I had been hoping for juicy corporate secrets that I could sell to a Fixer for money. Unfortunately, all it had was a very small and thin but luminescent nightgown, a set of very nice-looking lingerie that would utterly fail to guard a woman’s modesty, and a no-nonsense matte black Militech Ticon with two magazines.

“I sincerely hope these weren't for you,” I told the corpse as I put the clothes in a pouch of my loot bag that would keep them safe, “I'm not about to kink-shame. But I will kink-judge.”

The corpse failed to defend its kinks as I checked the Omaha’s safety, then loaded it and slipped it into my jacket pocket past my home-made hazmat suit and pocketed the remaining magazine, making sure to put them in a different pocket from where I kept the magazines to my usual gun.

Yes, a Tamayura likely wouldn’t kill an Animal or a Malestrumer in a single shot, or in five. But a .45 ACP slug will still hit them like a punch in the gut, not to mention that most gangsters and punks couldn’t afford the implants that would protect them from gunfire.

I picked up a few more choice broken electronics, as well as what looked to be a smudged though otherwise fairly intact Kiroshi, the telescoping line if I was any judge. Hopefully all it needed was a thorough cleaning and some new wiring.

Feeling satisfied with my scavenging and my pack having reached the point that it was somewhat difficult to carry, I stumbled my way back to Rancho Coronado. The moment I was past the toxic areas, I peeled my hazmat suit off and stuffed it into its sealable compartment of my bag.

I was deep in 6th Street territory, luckily I was known around these parts. They had attempted to convince me to sign up a few times but so far a firm if polite decline (and accidentally providing my services as a mechanic to someone important and relatively benevolent) had managed to keep me from having to join the gang.

I stopped by the first gun store on the way home to purchase a shoulder holster and two more magazines for my new Omaha, along with a box of flechettes. I absently filled the magazines with flechettes, settled my Omaha snugly into its new holster, practiced the draw past my jacket a few times and continued my trek home.

There weren't many good things I could say about Night City, at all, fuck this place with a rusty carving knife. But at least its public transportation system was actually fairly robust and ran mostly on time.

I stared out the bus’ window as it rumbled along, the dusty and decayed knockoff American Dream streets of Rancho slowly morphing to Arroyo’s tightly packed industrial spaces.

One would have thought that one lifetime spent in a Corporate Owned Dystopian Hellhole on the indefatigable march to self-destruction would have been enough. That the reward for the remembrance a life of ceaseless, meaningless and unrewarding toil would have been to have a different existence free of the shadow of those Colossi, a chance to strike one’s own path in a new world and have fun killing slimes before graduating to bringing a God to its knees…or something.

Whichever hypothetical ‘one’ this person happened to be, I wanna meet them face to face so I can punch them in the fuckin’ mouth.

I had been three years old when I ‘woke up’ in Night City. I'm honestly uncertain if I enjoyed being a three-year-old the first time around, but the second time I most certainly didn’t. Having a fully realized mind in a child’s brain made for headaches and a bipolar experience, the certain knowledge that I should have greater control over my emotional state coupled with a child’s brain lacking maturity resulted in…difficulties.

That said, once I regained my calm (and resigned myself to my situation), I became the calmest, best behaved little shit in existence. Unlike my entirely normal seeming little brother, who was preoccupied with walking around, screaming, and learning not to shit himself in his clothes, I was able to see that we were being taken care of by a struggling, overworked and underpaid single mother doing the best she could with what she had.

Being an old soul in a young body, I decided to do the boring thing and make full use of my body’s early neuroplasticity.

Let me tell you, re-learning to read was an experience.

My early and rapid advancement had not gone unnoticed. Mom had been beside herself with joy when she saw she’d had a ‘prodigy.’ I didn't have the heart to tell her she was wrong. At least she didn’t shove it in my and my brother’s face all the time.

If the world were less of a shithole, I might have been able to leverage that into some kind of advantage. Unfortunately, we were poor, so fuck us.

Out of all the places to be reborn in, the world of Cyberpunk was not among the top of my list. I held vague recollections of playing the tabletop game and spending a not insignificant amount of time playing a video game in the same setting.

Unfortunately, I couldn't just slap a bunch of mods on clothing and essentially become a God.

I’d checked.

That said, it was rather surprising how much my new reality resembled my faint recollections of the game, though with a filter of not having perfect recollection or even a particularly deep knowledge of the setting.

I hopped off the bus, oriented myself to Megabuilding H4 and started walking. On the way I plugged into a burrito SCSM and hacked lunch out of it.

I pocketed the XXL Turquesas and dodged around Whilley as he enjoyed his newest porn BD, though it looked like he’d forgotten to clean his Auto-Vag 9001™ again.

I suppressed a shudder and stepped a little farther to the side as I made my way past him as he half-moaned half-giggled and jogged up the stairs to the H4 atrium.

The H4 Megablock low-income housing was relatively cheap to rent an apartment in. And the apartments had a neat Future of the 80s disco aesthetic that, with the proper sunset lighting, really accentuated the curves of the architecture. The ones with a window anyways.

That was the end of everything positive I had to say about it.

I got off the ugly cargo elevator, navigated the bags of trash clogging the stairs leading to the block my family lived at, and tossed one of the burritos at Kamil. He nodded his thanks at me, undid the wrapping, and ate as he kept watch, his baseball bat with nails tapping an absent beat against his shoulder.

Good man that Kamil. He'd helped Mom carry me to her car once when I got sick with a stomach virus.

I shifted my salvage bag so it would stop digging quite so hard into my shoulder and climbed the rest of the stairs to the apartment. I strolled into the bachelor pad inhabited by my family and sighed in disappointment.

David was scrolling BDs again, knowing him it was one of those XBDs from that hack Ripperdoc he hung out with every now and then.

I went over to my ‘workstation,’ a small table with tinkering tools, gunsmithing tools, a small refurbished external cyberdeck, and a soldering iron. Once there, I deposited most of the junk I’d scavenged, leaving the cyberware in my bag as that would require more specialized tool sets.

I tossed my hazmat suit into the wash, deposited extra money into it as it was running short and would likely cut off the sanitation cycle. Put my guns away on my drawer and made my way to my little brother.

To call David my ‘little brother’ was a bit of a misnomer. We were fraternal twins; I'd only come out of mom a few minutes before David.

But while I was an old man in a teenage body, David was a teenager in truth, with all the ups and downs that condition came with. We also looked nothing alike. He was short and scrawny, with sinewy muscle coiled up his arms and legs. I was tall, broad shouldered, barreled chested and a strict workout regimen (and plenty of hacked SCSMs for protein) had given me impressive musculature, further enhancing my physical presence. He had wavy brown hair he styled into a punk pompadour, I had straight black hair that ran past my shoulders, tamed into a ponytail.

David’s skin was brown as caramel, mine was fair, the only hint to my Hispanic origins being the fact that the sun made me bronze rather than giving me sunburn. He’d gotten cybereyes first chance he got, while I used a Militech visor I’d scavenged and refurbished.

Lastly and more annoying, I spent my off-time training with a gun, to throw a punch, to master the world’s technology, or trying to leverage all of the above to make money.

David scrolled sketchy BDs.

With another sigh I left David where he was sprawled out on the couch and went to take a shower. I was too tired to try and make him see sense.

Our allotment of hot water helped wash the feeling of ‘Night City Municipal Landfill’ off me. After drying my hair and getting ready to leave, I had run out of easy ways to postpone talking to David, I went over to his place on the couch and gave him a solid poke in the liver.

He sat up with a surprisingly girlish scream, flinging the BD headset in my general direction. I jumped and caught it, if it broke I’d never hear the end of it.

“What the fuck, Alex!?” he glared at me.

“I tried calling your name a bunch.” I lied. “Anyways, here's lunch, I gotta head out so I need a favor.”

Without giving him a chance to speak I tossed him his burrito and transferred him eighteen hundred Eurodollars. He fumbled but caught the food, then his eyes flew wide open and the burrito slipped through his fingers. “Woah, where’d you get this much scratch!?”

“Been saving up. I need you to go buy the new BD wreaths we need for class, we still have two weeks but better to do it early, that way Mom will stop worrying about it. Try and get the best you can within that budget. Future proof as much as we can.”

David’s face twisted. “It's fine, I've taken care of it.”

I raised one eyebrow. “Yeah? How’d you do that exactly?”

“How I had to. It'll be fine though; we can keep this scratch and pay rent or something.”

“David,” he flinched as if his name had been a whip crack, “please tell me, exactly, how you took care of the BD wreath issue.”

He grimaced and looked to the side, his right foot starting to bounce. “Went to Doc, got our current headsets modded. It’ll work fine now.”

I took a deep, lung-stretching breath, the tempo of David’s foot turned nearly violent. He went to that hack of a ripper for a bootleg update? Was he trying to get us expelled? Did he seriously think it would help?

I let the breath out and my emotions with it. I put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze. “Thank you for that, little bro.”

“We’re the same age.” He grumbled.

“But it's a risk, one we don't have to run now. Please, if only for my peace of mind, okay?”

“Yeah alright.” He grumbled some more as his foot stopped tapping.

“Nova, anyways, I gotta head out to make my shift with Vik.” I made my way to the door, smirked, and threw a last shot over my shoulder. “Do please get the BD wreaths before you continue your porn BD marathon.”

“They’re not—!”

The swish of the door closing cut him off. I hefted my much lighter bag and made my way back out of the Megablock and right back to the bus stop to get to the metro station, I was forced to take a roundabout route when the sounds of a firefight echoed from a few streets down.

I wondered for a moment if it was between 6th Street and the Valentinos, or 6th and the Tyger Claws. It was unlikely to be the cops, they didn't usually patrol this far from City Center.

I kept a hand on my Tamayura and thankfully reached the metro station without incident. Yeah, that shiny new Omaha was probably the better weapon, but I hadn't gotten to know that gun yet, I hadn't gotten a chance to learn its quirks, so I thought it better to stick to a lesser weapon that I knew well.

The ride to Japantown was fairly uneventful, as I exited the Metro station I considered getting on the bus for the next leg of my journey. But all things considered, the Claws kept relatively good order in the sub-district so long as you didn't cross them, and I was neither an attractive young woman nor an effeminate pretty boy, so barring a few very particular fetishes, it was fairly unlikely that they'd try to kidnap me.

So I put a hand in my pocket near my handgun and walked to the intersection of Broadbury & Buran and into Urmland street.

Urmland street was a microcosm of Japantown; Bright, noisy, packed full of people and stinking to high heaven. In this wretched hive of scum and villainy you could get fairly convincing replicas of brand clothing, knockoffs of the best weapons money could buy, surprisingly high quality cyberware, and last and absolutely certainly least, it had no less than two obnoxiously pink brothels featuring the latest in venereal diseases.

Really, it was Night City concentrated into a single street.

I walked into Misty’s Esoterica, unsuccessfully waved away the smell of incense, and gave the young woman a wave and a smile.

She smiled and waved back, not commenting as I made my way to the back door and into the alley behind the building.

I descended the stairs into the realm of Viktor Vector’s clinic. Top Ripperdoc in Little China, former championship tier boxer, and cool enough to wear sunglasses indoors and not look like a total asshat doing it.

“Afternoon, Vik.” I called out as I stepped into his clinic. The place was a little run down, but it was clean. It was half clinic, half boxing gym, and half tinkerer workshop. All three of those halves somehow managing to add up to exactly one whole.

“Afternoon, kid.” Viktor smiled as he spoke, turning away from the monitor that showed two boxers beating the living hell out of each other. Viktor had the type of voice I wanted narrating a detective story, all scratch, growl, whiskey and warmth. “How’d the morning scavenging go?”

I grinned back. “You won’t believe what I got today.”

“Alright, hit me.”

I put my duffel bag on the table at the back of the clinic and prepared the degreaser. “I found a NetWatch cyberdeck.”

“You’re right, I don’t believe you. Next thing you'll tell me, you found a limited edition Kiroshi.”

My grin grew to shit-eating proportions. “Perhaps not limited edition, but…”

He stood up from the table and made his way over, his eyes widening behind his glasses as he looked at the cyberware I pulled out of my bag. “Woah, you weren't lying.”

Viktor was an imposing man, not quite as tall as me, but his chest and arms were thick with chorded muscle, as befitted someone who took second place in the Watson Boxing Grand Prix back in his heyday. He reached out and picked up the Cyberdeck. “Kid, this is a NetWatch Netdriver Mk. 5. Where did you even find this?”

“A dead guy in a fridge. That's also where I picked up this cyberarm.” I hefted the arm in question and shook it. “It looks both weird and neat, so I was thinking of taking the thing apart to see what makes it tick.”

Viktor continued to stare at the Cyberdeck for a while longer, then set it down and turned back to me. “Look kid, I can’t flip the Cyberdeck for you.”

I raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Viktor shook his head. “It's too hot, if I implant that and some gonk goes and spills where he got it, I’ll have NetWatch on my ass faster than rumor. No, you'll need a Fixer, a good one, you'll get pennies on the eddie, but for something like this that would still be a good chunk of scratch. I can get you in contact with one, but that's the best I can do.”

I hummed and scratched my cheek. “Eh, I still need to clean it and see if it needs fixing. We’ll see how that turns out. For now, I just wanna fiddle with the Thing.”

Viktor looked at me for a long moment before turning away and picking up the Kiroshi. He blinked, his eyes glowing for a few moments as he scanned the piece of Cyberware. “Huh, a Kiroshi Kromatic, not a bad find.”

“I've never heard of those.”

“You wouldn't have,” he said with a nod as he set the cybereye down, “they stopped production on them after some gonk or another sabotaged the production line and destroyed the blueprints. They were all the rage some ten years ago, but it's pretty rare to see them now.”

I leaned in to get a closer look at the piece, and Viktor continued as he examined different parts of it. “Their specs match the top of last-gen Kiroshis. And you can customize their color and glow on the fly with a cyberdeck. If you can clean it up and get it working, it'll fetch a pretty eddie from the right collector.”

“Neat.” I said and reached for the tools, only for Viktor to stop me.

“Sorry kid, but I need you to run an inventory. It's getting time I restock and I need to know what I'm missing.”

“Drat.” I grumbled as I pulled out my Agent and slipped my visor from where it hung around my neck onto my eyes.

Viktor chuckled. “If I don’t get a patient, you’re free to play around with that project of yours after you finish with the inventory.”

“Thanks, boss.” I said as I finished pulling on my haptic feedback glove and walked to the back of the clinic, pulling open my pirated spreadsheet app I began the long, boring, but nonetheless vital process of making a list of all of Viktor’s crap.

Chapter 2, feel free to give me your thoughts in the comments.
=][=

I woke up early and spent some time staring at the holographic advertisements that couldn't be turned off hovering over the couch area of the apartment. One of these days, I was going to shoot that projector, then piss on its sparking innards. Fortunately for it, that day was not today.

Yesterday had been a long day at Viktor’s clinic. After a long week of fucking around and finding out with cyberware bits and bobs, I had made the breakthrough I’d been seeking, I could feel it in my bones. And then a group of Tyger Claws had come in and bled all over the floor. I'd set about assisting the man in saving their collective assess, then one of them whimpered particularly pathetically and I was staring down the barrel of a gun while the only unharmed idiot stated that if his friends died, then so would I.

Thankfully, Viktor distracted the Tyger long enough for me to draw my pistol and shoot out both the Tyger’s elbows as well as his knees.

I still refute Viktor’s insistence that I had been too zealous in shooting the idiot eight times. I took things exactly as far as they needed to be taken, sure, it ended up adding a few more eddies to their bill, and they lost their designated driver, but the more seasoned hands in that specific group of Tygers agreed with me that their rookie was paying the ‘fuck around and find out’ fee.

Plus, the guy in charge of them had found it hilarious, so it was all for the better. You don't mess with the techie whose job it is to get lead out of your innards.

I sat up and stretched the kinks out of my back, and spotted Mom, curled up on her side on the other side of the couch. I sighed and got up to wake David and start the day.

As always, he'd waited till the last minute to wash his uniform. The washing machine ran out of money mid-cycle again. It took me an inordinate effort of will to not send the washing machine to kingdom fucking come.

Once the thing was washing again, I ate the breakfast I’d hacked from a SCSM on my way back from Vik’s and wore my usual loose jacket to put my pistols politely out of sight.

“We good?” David asked as he finished putting his hair in ‘order.’

“Yeah, one sec.”

I went to grab a blanket to drape it over Mom. Sure, I had hazy memories of another family, but Gloria had had fourteen years to prove herself, it would be unfair to her not to consider her family, even if I was not as close to her as I had been with my first ma.

I draped the blanket over her as gently as I could, she still sat bolt upright with a gasp the moment the blanket settled.

“Well shit, sorry Ma, was trying not to wake you.” I said with a grimace. “Now that you’re awake though, you should go sleep on the bed.”

“Yeah!” David piped in from his place by the door. “At this rate you'll get early onset arthritis!”

Gloria laughed sheepishly as I rolled my eyes at him. “Sorry, Mijo. I didn't want to wake you boys, got home kinda late.”

I sighed and decided not to have the conversation about pulling less overtime again. Yeah, thanks to my income from playing nurse for Vik things weren't nearly as tight as they’d been a couple years back. But that only seemed to drive Gloria to work harder, which was the exact opposite of what I'd wanted.

“Well, now you can sleep on the bed, and don't worry about breakfast.” I said and pointed at the table at the prepackaged generic breakfast tacos. “I took care of it.”

Gloria pouted, nobody with two near adult kids should be able to pull off that cute of a pout. “Ugh, Mijo, I keep telling you to save your money.”

I shrugged with a nonchalant smile. “They were half off. Anyways, we've gotta head out.”

“Wait up!” Gloria shouted, all but jumping to her feet. “I got paid last night, so we finally have enough for that BD Wreath update!”

“Ma, I told you that Alex took care of it.” David grumbled.

Gloria furrowed her brows and gave David the glare only the sleepy can manage. “He did?”

“Yup.”

She turned her gimlet stare on me. “You did?”

I sighed. “I told you too. My payday happened a bit earlier than yours, Ma. I asked David to go buy ‘em last week, the gonk waited until two days ago. So no need to worry.”

She did not look mollified. “Alex, I told you I would take care of it. You should have saved that money or spent it on something you wanted.” She blinked a couple of times. “Also, don't call your brother a gonk.”

I ignored her instructions as was my right as the elder and wiser brother, then leaned down and gave her a peck on the forehead. “And I did, Ma. Now go to the bed and go back to sleep, you look exhausted. See ya later, okay?”

The holographic advertisement machine flashed a news screen at us, showing what was, by the sight of the blood, bodyparts, and numerous broken bodies, the site of a massacre.

+A military-grade implant was found missing from the body of Lieutenant Colonel James Norris, shot dead by MaxTac.+ Said the reporter in a very nice imitation of a concerned voice. Because who cares about the more than two dozen dead bodies on display, the important thing is a random piece of overdesigned cyberware that some lucky scav stole.

“Hey mom, look, you’re on TV! Nova!” David shouted, on the screen, I could see Gloria’s messy red hair as she wheeled a bodybag into the meatwagon she drove and became immediately concerned.

She had been close to the scav that got that cyberware, meaning she might have been in danger. Fuck in all hell, I couldn’t wait to get a job at Arasaka so I could get her to quit her own job as a low-level med tech.

She grumbled, chastised David for being so excited about a massacre, and wished us a good day. I adjusted my visor as David sulked and we made our way out, nodding to Kamil on the way, I had to stop David jumping down to a trash pile to skip the stairs again. Dumbass never thought of the fact that anything rigid enough would stab right through the soles of his shoes.

Whilley still hadn’t cleaned his Auto-Vag, at this point I was less disgusted and more morbidly fascinated on whether or not he might get the first ever documented case of a self-inflicted venereal disease.

The Omaha dug annoyingly into my side, so I adjusted the holster as we made our way into the Metro. David proceeded to zone out as he usually did while I kept an eye out on everyone else as the Metro zoomed by over the streets of Night City.

I spotted the girl that frequented this line, pick socketing the Arasaka suits who used it to get to work. Judging by her rainbow hair and outfit, and the monowire implants in her arms, she was likely an Edgerunner with a bone to pick against Arasaka.

She stood with her back to a suit, the socket with his bank-shard flashed but did not beep, it then launched the shard out in a straight line right into her waiting palm. She looked up as she searched for her next target and our eyes met.

Her eyes immediately narrowed as she realized that I had seen what she did, her shoulders tensing then relaxing as her posture changed very subtly. I kept my expression flat and uninterested but did not for an instant take my eyes off the girl.

Our staring match continued for a what felt like minutes, my eyes starting to burn due to not blinking for so long. She remained ready to spring to action but otherwise did nothing to begin hostilities, which suited me just fine, I just didn't want her taking my money.

We didn't get a chance to relax until the train car came to a stop and we spilled out like over packed sardines.

Not that there were sardine cans anymore. Fuckin’ corps.

The Netrunner quickly lost herself in the crowd as my oblivious brother and I made our way further into city center.

I hated Night City’s Corpo Plaza with a passion.

The streets were clean, the people well dressed, there was a police car at every corner, real honest to fuck trees, shrubs and grass, and there were two giant holographic fish forever chasing each other in an unending dance.

A shining jewel in the center of the City of Dreams.

Well, the jewel was plain old glass, the dreams were night terrors, the fish were fake, and hell was other people.

I really hated the fact that I legitimately looked like I belonged, the perfect wannabe corpo brat trying to lead a street-rat delinquent onto the path of enlightenment.

Fuck this place with a rusty rake. Hopefully I'll be able to use the corpo job I'll nab in a few years to save enough money to get the fuck out and do my own thing.

Arasaka banking? Yeah no, fuck that noise. I'll figure some way to stash my cash somewhere the fuckin’ corp can't just seize my money.

It wasn't long before David and I had arrived at Arasaka Academy, and I had to check my guns in at the guard station.

The fucker had the audacity to give me a dirty look for the Omaha. Make that one more idiot that bought into the Arasaka/Militech rivalry.

Arasaka Academy was an imposing building with a typical corpo façade. I ignored the usual scoffs and sneers at my presence much better than David. I was thankful for the entirely separate life experience in my head that had long gotten over the teenage angst. It made it much easier to stick it to the rich kids.

The fact that most of them weren’t capable of looking me in the eye without tilting their heads back was a bonus.

David and I made it to our classroom and I was immediately accosted by our VI ‘Teacher’. +Mister Martinez, you were very nearly late.+

“But was I late?” I asked carelessly as I made my way to the recliner chair all the way at the back of the class, the twenty or so rich kids giving me the stink eye.

+You arrived with three seconds to spare, but early arrival is one of the ways to show commitment to the Arasaka Family.+

“Yeah well, the Arasaka family can feel free to incentivize me to show up earlier. Until then I’ll console myself with merely having ‘outstanding potential.’” I said the last while making quotes with my fingers.

+Sarcasm does not become you, Mister Martinez.+ Teacher chastised lightly.

“I was being literal.” I shot back as I hopped onto my seat. “Offer me extra credit if you want me here earlier, if not, stop bothering me about the fact that I show up on time.”

+A report has been filed about your attitude Mister Martinez.+ Teacher informed me ‘sadly’. +Now, students, prepare your headsets, I do hope you remembered to get the upgrade.+

A message pinged the corner of my visor. Glancing at it, I saw that Tanaka was trying to get me into a private chat. The look I threw at him was akin to the look one reserves for stepping on exceedingly rancid shit.

I then declined the invite, got comfortable, and pulled out the BD Wreath David had bought with my money. Thankfully, the gonk pulled out the same model, a part of me had been afraid he’d stick to his guns about the bootleg update he’d gotten.

I also suspected he made the mistake of responding to the useless peanut gallery.

+We will begin class with a meditation.+ The VI said, the BD wreaths shining hard enough to hurt the eye before synching with my neuralware and I was suddenly lying down in a grassy meadow.

Well, time for a nap.

=][=

“When will you rats get the message and leave us in peace?” Said a voice so annoying it made my ears bleed. “Forcing your stench on us all is just unkind.”

David turned with a snarl on his face while I glanced over my shoulder to look at Katsuo Tanaka, wannabe bully and Corporat Underordinaire.

What's that, Underordinaire is not a word? Well, it should be.

“Come on David,” I said, turning my back and resuming my trek to the cafeteria, “Tatsio is just jealous our hair is better than his.”

“My name is Tanaka Katsuo!” He blustered, then after a few moments added. “And my hair is way better than you two peons!”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, dum dum.”

“You will face me when I speak to you!” Katsuo demanded.

“I would,” I retorted, “but I would hate to give you the illusion I respect you Matsuo.”

“When will your whore of a mother learn that this is not a place for filth like you!” Katsuo screeched.

Gloria’s exhausted face flashed in front of my eyes. I slowed for a step and took a deep breath, but kept walking.

Unfortunately for all of us, Katsuo noticed my little slip.

“What's that, not going to try to defend your bitch of a mother? Are you so ashamed of what she has to do to keep you enrolled in this prestigious academy? Tell me, who are her favorite clients? My bet is on Maelstrom!”

I stopped and turned around, his face souring at my smile. “What's that? I can't hear you over your horrid incompetence mister twelfth place!”

Katsuo’s hands balled into fists. He opened his mouth and I cut him off as I walked towards him.

“You know, you tar-blooded peacocks strut around here like you have done anything to earn your keep. With your ‘ware that was supplied by someone else, getting grades bought for you, tell me, can you shit on your own or do you need your parents’ money to help you do it?” 

The mention of his parents made him twitch, scenting blood in the water, I pushed harder, speaking over his attempts to get a word in edgewise.

“Then again, for your parents to do anything other than throw money at you to keep you quiet and out of the way, you’d have to actually have some kind of value, wouldn’t you?” I said as I got up to him and leaned down to leer at his face, the corner of his eye twitched minutely and I pressed harder. “But why would the Mighty Tanaka stoop so low as to waste any of his extremely valuable time on you, mister twelfth place?”

“My father is a great man!” Katsuo shouted.

“And you’re not.” I said, and he recoiled as if I had slapped him. “But keep in mind that for your father, money has no value. He deals in politics, in power, in influence. He can piss away hundreds of thousands of Eurodollars and not even notice. When your father spends money on you, it's to keep you quiet and out of his way.

“My family may be lower-middle class.” We weren’t, we were poor, but this idiot would not have an idea of how to measure that, “to us, money has value, so when our mother spends money on us? It’s an expression of love, of care. Of everything you will never earn from your father, because you're just slow, dumb, pathetic, twelfth pl-”

The only reason I managed to dodge his punch was that I was looking out for it and started moving the moment his shoulder twitched. I evaded the following flurry with the ingenious tactic of taking a few steps back.

David gaped and backed off, kids started chanting, “fight, fight, fight!” and everyone got together for the blue bloods’ favorite sport, ‘beat on the plebeian.’

Tanaka threw himself forward, his body moving in a fluid yet mechanical manner. He’d chipped in kickboxing, allowing his ‘ware to puppet his body through fighting moves.

His fists went for my chin, solar plexus and liver with mechanical precision. But Tanaka himself did not know how to fight. People like him were like button mashers in fighting games, all sound and fury but no knowledge of the fundamentals.

As his fist dented the metal wall after a particularly close dodge, I saw that he seemed to have some manner of reinforcement on his fists, likely his shins as well, but he hadn’t thrown a kick yet.

Still, this was nothing I hadn’t seen before at the gym. Viktor was slower, but that man knew fighting, he could read most people like a book, he dominated any match against me from the start. Yes, I could beat Viktor in a fight, but that was because I was young and he was creeping into his sixties.

Viktor had taught me much about boxing, his arm was a cannon, his knowledge of the fundamentals was as solid as a mountain, and he was more than crafty enough to maneuver any opponent right where he wanted them. The polar opposite to Tanaka, who attacked so confidently and guilelessly that it was almost embarrassing. Yes, his arms and legs moved so fast they were a blur, but that didn't matter much if I knew how far his arm extended and simply stepped out of his reach.

Tanaka had chipped in the movements, but he’d earned nothing. He didn’t truly know what he was doing. Most importantly, he had none of the conditioning.

All I had to do was wait.

Eventually, Tanaka tripped, his physique unable to keep up with the footwork necessary for the movements the chip demanded of him. I stepped forward into him as he worked to regain his balance and drove my fist into his jaw, cannoning his head to the side. His legs turned to jelly and he collapsed forward, and fell right onto my rising foot, his nose and cheek crumpled as they picked a fight with my steel toe boot and lost. His head snapped up so hard the back of his head bounced off his upper back.

Tanaka fell face first against the floor, a small puddle of blood growing around his face as he did not so much as twitch.

In the deafening silence of the corridor, I was able to just hear him breathing, meaning he was alive and officially no longer my problem.

I turned my back on him. “Come on David, we need to get to the cafeteria before the good stuff runs out.”

The blue bloods all but threw themselves out of my way as I stepped forward.

While a part of me felt vindictive glee at the very obvious fear in their expressions, the more rational part of my brain was livid at myself for my lack of self control and colossal fuckup.

Hopefully I’d at least be able to get lunch before shit hit the fan. I was starving.

=][=

I’d had to eat lunch on my feet, barely managing to get my hands on peach flavored nutrient paste before being called to the office.

Fuck, at least David was spared this indignity.

I sat, fuming silently as the waste hole in the principal’s face spewed such an incredible amount of bullshit, it was a surprise we weren’t drowning in it.

I paid half an ear to the jackass as he told Gloria he was worried by my ‘violently antisocial tendencies’ and how I might perhaps be a better fit elsewhere.

Fucking spineless, bootlicking, toad-faced jackass.

“I'm sorry, I'll be sure to punish him. But expulsion is surely too drastic! This is his first offense!” Gloria pleaded.

The man smiled, the expression somewhere between sad and obsequious. “I'm sorry ma’am, but his marked and well-documented attitude problems tie my hands, this unprovoked assault on another student-”

“When will your whore of a mother learn that this is not a place for filth like you!”

Both him and Gloria were startled when Tanaka’s voice broke into his bullshit routine.

The toad’s eyes went wide when he realized he wasn't the only one with evidence.

“What’s that, not going to try to defend your bitch of a mother? Are you so ashamed of what she has to do to keep you enrolled in this prestigious academy? Tell me, who are her favorite clients? My bet is on Maelstrom!” Tanaka continued, happily digging the principal in deeper. I picked up my shovel.

“I also have the video evidence of Tanaka not only throwing the first punch, but of attacking me with enough force to crack concrete.” I said, causing the tub of lard to go pale. “What I have here is a clear-cut case of self-defense.” I glared into his eyes. “It’d be a shame for me to be expulsed for defending myself from unprovoked aggression.”

I made a subtle sign with the hand I kept out of sight of Gloria. The Arasaka hand signals for ‘Broadcast’ and ‘Blood Enemy’ and the toad went white as a sheet.

Yeah jackass. I'm willing to sell this to Militech. Will anything get done? No, but this idiot would be thrown hard under the bus when Militech gleefully put their PR machine behind the video and did their best to turn it into a scandal.

Sure, this would only lead to Arasaka Academy losing a few points of a percent of their quarterly earnings. But that was enough for dumb dumb to lose his job, have his accounts and apartment seized, and be tossed out on his ear with nothing but the clothes on his back.

And likely not even that.

He stared at me like a deer in the headlights before rallying and clearing his throat. “On…account of new evidence. It is clear that I was not privy to all the pertinent information. He is excused for the day, I will deal with Mr. Tanaka and make it clear that he should not lie to get out of trouble. Have a wonderful day, I’ll make personally sure to send Mr. Martinez his assignments for the day.” He beat a hasty retreat out of his own fucking office.

Fucker didn't even apologize.

Gloria remained neutrally quiet as we made our way out of the building, she didn't even click her tongue as I picked up my pistols from the guard station. I tried to relax my shoulders as she drove us out of the Corpo Plaza and towards Arroyo.

I did my best to remain calm, but Gloria’s silence grated harshly on my nerves.

Sure, a big part of *-me didn't see her as my ‘real’ Mom, but the woman had taken care of me for over ten years, sacrificing much to give my little brother and I a better life than she'd had. She'd earned my respect many times over, and I’d have to be some kind of sociopath not to have grown to love the woman like family.

“I’m sorry,” I ground out, “I’m sorry I fucked up.”

The silence continued for a few seconds longer before she sighed. “That is so like you, Alex.” She said with weary amusement. “You are not sorry you did it, you are sorry it went badly.

“Alex, I don't need you to defend me.” She continued, her hands tightening on the steering wheel. “You shouldn’t feel obligated t-”

“It shouldn't be that way!” the words burst out of me, I was powerless to stop them, the lid I’d been keeping on them refusing to seal them away again. “You’re a thousand times better than every single one of those assholes who haven't known a day of hard work in their entire lives! I shouldn't have to allow them to insult you just because they were born into money! This wasn’t the first time, it wasn’t the fifth, it wasn't the tenth! I’ve complained, I’ve submitted forms, evidence! I've done everything their own rules say I should, and I've been ignored just because I have the better but less affluent parent!

“I don't care about what they say about me, but I shouldn’t have to sit there and let them badmouth you, fuck!” I punctuated the last statement with a punch to my thigh that would definitely leave a bruise. I sat on the seat, my fingers digging painfully into my palms and tried to get my breathing, my anger, back under my control.

It wasn't until I felt a callused palm settle softly over one of my fists that I was able to unclench them.

“I know honey.” Gloria…Mom said, her voice quivering slightly. “I know it's not fair, I know those kids are cruel and horrid, I know you're doing your best, and I’m proud of you. You, who have been the top of your class for years, who has a perfect attendance record.” She laughed, the sound a little wet. “You, who stepped up and all but raised your twin brother because of how busy I am. I couldn’t be more proud of you, Mijo.

“But as proud as I am, as much as I understand. You need to not let them get to you like this again. They almost got what they wanted, you gone so you couldn't keep embarrassing them with how much better than them you are.” She smirked with what on anyone else I would have called bloodlust. “And no hijo de mis entrañas would ever let an asshole like them get what they wanted from him.”

I laughed and surreptitiously wiped my own cheeks. “Ma, that was simultaneously the worst and best peptalk ever.”

Mom blew a raspberry at me. “Cabron, I'll have you know, before I was an emergency tech, I was a professional peptalker.”

Before I could retort, I was deafened by the buzz-saw roar of a light machine gun going off right next to my ear, the front of the car was shredded as tracer rounds went past right in front of my face.

Nigh on fourteen years of cognizance in Night City engrained the necessary response to the current situation into my body. The Omaha was in my hand, safety off and the rail was being overcharged before I’d finished flinching. I aimed it straight at the driver’s door of the vehicle the gunfire was coming from. An eternity and dozens of bullets chewing through the car later, the computer in the pistol registered unsafe levels of power and discharged three consecutive shots, the weapon bucked in my hand, sending nine steel flechettes through the door.

The driver’s window turned dark red from the inside, the shooting halted, without the glare of the weapon’s fire I saw the lumpy face and grotesquely overmuscled body of an Animal sitting on top of their van, his eyes widening.

I put six flechettes into his face, his eyes cracked like marbles and he screamed so loud I felt it in my bones.

The Animal’s vehicle loomed large as I searched for another target.

The impact threw off my aim as it sent Mom’s car reeling. A second impact slammed my head into the frame and it became very difficult to think.

I sat, listening to the ringing in my ears. The Omaha overcharging and wasting three shots worth of my hard-earned eddies made me cognizant enough to understand that I did not have the time to sit around and I should relax the death grip I had on the weapon.

Looking to the left, I didn't see Gloria in the car, had she climbed out?

A few blinks later, I realized the driver’s side door was gone.

There was a feeling like warm water pouring down from the top of my head as my heart sped up and slammed the bars of its cage in rage, my mind cleared and I clawed at the seatbelt release, when it didn't budge I got my knife out and cut it, then crawled out of the car.

Gloria was lying on the ground several feet away. I tried to call her name, but the only thing that made it past my lips was a choked sob.

It happened again. I’d prepared better, worked harder, went about it smarter, and I’d still failed, I’d still not been good enough.

Once again, I’d failed as a son and protector.

The world became crystal clear, I felt cold and sick, like I'd eaten something out of that sketchy food van that sets up at the corner where the Glen, Vista del Rey and Corpo Plaza meet.

I turned to look at the Animal’s van, at the grotesque bodies of the gangsters sprawled around it.

They were stirring.

I walked up to the first one, shoved the Omaha into his mouth and tilted it up into his palette, try as one might, it was very difficult to reinforce the roof of the mouth without replacing most of the skull.

A moment later, the Animal’s head was spread across the pavement, I absently reloaded and went to the next one, and after that the next.

The last Animal was woken by the noise, I was forced to shoot his hands into pulp and he didn’t calm down until I put six flechettes through his groin.

The next nine reduced his head to mincemeat.

I was out of Animals.

I’d need to find more of them.

I’d have to get Vik to do some work on me first though. Otherwise, some of them might get away.

It was a long walk to Vik’s and the car was not safe to drive, it was also upside down, I better get started.

I turned in the direction of Little China and my eyes slid over Gloria’s body.

The cold and the clarity of purpose vanished, but the sickness remained, it settled deep into my gut, at once poisoning me and giving me strength.

I stumbled to Gloria and fell to my knees next to her. I wanted to apologize, to ask forgiveness, to promise I’d avenge her. But the words caught in my throat.

Words wouldn’t make this right, Gloria was gone, I’d failed her utterly.

I looked at the Animals, the ice and clarity resurging from the poisoned well.

Gloria groaned and shifted. I froze for several seconds, then I was on my feet, running to the Animal’s car.

The dead driver’s shard with the key to the car was caked in blood. I barely bothered wiping it before slotting it in. Getting his worthless hide out of the car was more difficult. The bastard must have weighed at least three hundred pounds. The good news was that, once I tilted him over enough, gravity did the rest for me and he even took most of his intestines with him.

I rushed over to Mom and carefully lifted her up, trying to keep her neck from moving was difficult as I rushed and laid her down on the backseat. Once she was as secure as I could make her, I was tearing down the street before I’d finished adjusting the driver’s seat.

I couldn't go to a hospital, they were far too expensive, her insurance wouldn't cover much more than basic treatment, and I doubted they wouldn't just kill her and harvest her organs. 95 plus percent organic women were a valuable commodity in Night City.

It was a good thing that my visor was refurbished military tech, it still worked even if it had a crack in it.

I called Vik, when he didn't answer I called again. I was shouting obscenities by the third time the call failed to connect.

He finally answered on my eighth call. [Hey kid, sorry was in th-]

My intent was to give a calm, accurate report of what was wrong and the steps that we would need to take to fix things, just as I had done countless times working as his unofficial nurse and apprentice.

What came out, choked through tears and rage, was. “Vik, fuck! My mom’s hurt Vik! Fuck Vik it's bad! Fucking Animals! Fucking Night City! Fuck Vik, I can't let her down like this! Please Vik, fuck!”

[Woah kid! Calm down, what’s going on!?]

“Fuck Vik she's fucking dying Vik, fuck! I wish I had money, Trauma Team would already be treating her, fuck!”

[Kid! Kid deep breaths! I’ll prep the chair, okay? Just be safe until you get here, alright?]

“Yeah, yeah, fuck Vik. Thanks, I’ll be there soon, whatever you need to do Vik, save her! I'm good for it, you know I'm good for it! Fuck!”

I dodged onto the shoulder on the highway and scraped down the side of a number of vehicles, I ignored the honks as I utterly disrespected other vehicles and the road.

The drive to Vik’s clinic was a blur, I was fairly certain I didn't run anyone over, but I honestly cannot recall. I’d spent the drive worrying too much about jostling the car.

The following hours are disjointed and unconnected whenever I try to recall them.

I remember tearing down the highway, driving through streets, stopping at Urmland street. I remember seeing Misty in the corner of my eye as I rushed through her store with my Mom in my arms.

I remembered pacing back and forth in the alleyway, I’d tried to help, but my hands were shaking too hard for it to be safe to be around my mom. I’d connected to the Net that ran Vik’s clinic and kept an eye on the tally of things.

Shattered ribs, a new lung, though Vik was able to reinflate the other, her kidneys had been in bad condition and the incident caused them to fail entirely. Her heart was bruised but with a minor application of nanites I’d jailbroken for him, Vik was able to save it.

Intestinal damage, liver failure, and that was before going into the spinal issues.

But Vik was as good as his word. He’d closed the app that calculated the cost, probably in an attempt to give me some peace of mind, but I kept a running tally.

Thirty thousand Eurodollars so far in parts alone.

Fuck. We did not have that kind of money. And mom would need time to heal after this, she wouldn't be able to work, she’d get fired, we’d lose the apartment, let alone staying in school.

My plan of saving up and opening my own business was over. I’d need to do something to keep Mom and David fed and with a roof over their heads. If I could make enough, I might even be able to keep David in school.

However, I couldn't go into a conventional job. Anything Corporate had too high a barrier to entry, and they wouldn't start paying enough for us to be self-sufficient until and unless I managed to climb high enough on the ladder, the bottom rungs paid worse than Mom’s meat wagon job.

There weren't enough independent businesses, and of those, I already worked for one that paid better than most thanks to Vik being one of the few worthwhile human beings that still existed in this shit pile of a world. If I used the totality of my paycheck, we may be able to keep the apartment, and so long as we rationed carefully, we should be able to keep ourselves fed.

And I wouldn’t be able to pay Vik back, not in any kind of reasonable timeframe.

No, to have any chance at climbing back from the abyss, I needed to do something drastic, something with a high reward.

I looked at the ground in the direction of my workstation.

There were ways to mitigate risk.

Misty had handed me Mom’s things, they were significantly heavier than clothes should be, especially since Mom didn’t keep a purse.

Holding a purse was a good way of getting shot in Night City.

Opening the bag, I felt around and immediately bumped my hand into a piece of metal.

Grabbing it and pulling it out, I beheld Mom’s Smartpaint EMT jacket, it was bundled around something. Unfolding the jacket, I saw a spinal implant.

Looking at its connectors and running a diagnostic on it, I saw it was, of all things, a fuckmothering Sandevistan, and judging by the numbers I was getting back, this one in particular made the QianT Mk IV look like a particularly poor-quality potato.

How the flying gangrenous fuck had Mom gotten her hands on a fucking Milspec Implant? 

The why was obvious, she was going to flip it for cash, probably chump change. No way she'd see even ten percent of what it was actually worth.

Vik probably wouldn't want to touch this with a ten-foot pole, but he still had contacts, he could put me in contact with a Fixer that wouldn’t screw me over too badly.

But I’d still be lucky to get even twenty thousand out of the sale.

No, selling this thing would at best mitigate my issue, it wouldn’t solve it.

My eyes drifted in the direction of my workstation.

This was a bad idea. Literally crazy. I hated everything about the idea of being a Cyberpunk. I hated the way they were exploited; I hated the way they spread pain and sorrow wherever they went. I hated that they uselessly raged against ironclad corporate control instead of pooling their efforts into an actual form of resistance, all the while being pawns for the Corporate Overlords to use in their power games.

But they made money, the good ones made good money.

The ones with an Edge? Those made fortunes.

And what better Edge than my brainchild? Something that, as far as I knew, did not exist in the market? Yes, my plan had been to try and patent it, to use it to claw my way up to a stable living for me and my new family. But that long term goal would never arrive if we starved in the short term.

Survival was far more important than a pipe dream.

I headed down to my workstation, I grabbed the Netdriver Mk. V and the Kiroshi Kromatic. And lastly, I grabbed the Spinal/Neural rig I’d been working on. And set the terminal to jailbreaking the Netdriver while I prepared everything else.

There had been previous attempts to implant multiple types of cranial implants in a person, as far as I knew, they all ended badly. The neural load on a person’s system too much for it to handle.

So, I thought, why not put most of the load for those on something external?

My Spinal/Neural rig (name pending) was my answer. It was essentially an implant that other implants would slot into, it was little more than a line of processors and heat sinks hooked up to a painstakingly written OS. It should run both implants on its own, with minimal input from my brain, severely lowering the neural load on my meatware system.

Theoretically.

I'd run enough simulations that I was fairly certain the concept was solid. I'd even pushed my experimental prototype to the point that I’d been ready to move past simulations and into actual testing.

I'd had planned to pay a few bums on the street to slot it in and run a number of tests, which was why I’d constructed it to be as rugged as I could make it.

This bit of paranoia was now a blessing.

As I finished putting together the Frankenstein monster of an implant, I received a call from David.

I blinked tired eyes and absently accepted the call.

[Hey Alex. You at the junkyard? Are you going to bring dinner or should I get something? Kinda tired of waiting for you to get back.]

I blinked at David’s name on my visor’s HUD. Mom is hurt, I’m contemplating suicide with extra steps for her and his benefit, and the only thing this piece of shit brat can think about is what's for fucking dinner?

I took a deep breath to begin the mother of all tirades, when my tired mind caught up and informed me that I hadn’t kept David abreast of what happened.

Just another of my failures.

[Alex?] David said after so many seconds of listening to my uneven breathing. [You okay?]

I took a deep breath and held it for four seconds, then let it out slowly before answering. “No, David. I'm pretty fucking far from okay.” 

[Why, what’s up?]

Concentrate on your breathing, Alex. Inhale, count to four, exhale, count to four, rinse and repeat. “There was a gang hit. Mom got hurt, bad, I took her to Vik. He's been working non-stop for…a while. The worst is past, I think.”

David made several choking noises before screaming. [What the fuck Alex!? You should have fucking told me!]

Inhale, count to four, exhale, count to four. “Yeah, yeah I should have, sorry, I got banged up, everything was just too much. I forgot.”

[Shit, choom.] David said, the wind leaving his sails. [I'm on my way, I’ll be there as soon as I can.]

“Yeah. See you when you get here, be safe.”

David hung up without another word. I ran one last simulation but got the same somewhat optimistic results. In theory, this piece of chrome should allow me to run the two implants simultaneously.

In practice, it may well cook my brain.

“Desperate times.” I sighed, then smirked at the monstrosity in front of me and muttered. “My name is Ozymandias, King of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair.”

“Kid, you holding up okay?” Vik asked, placing a hand on my shoulder, making me twitch in surprise.

In answer, I sighed and said. “Lay it on me, Vik.”

He was quiet for several seconds before speaking. “Kid, don't worry about the money. You’ve-” 

“I run your inventory and your books old man.” I interrupted. “I asked as a formality, you cannot afford the goodwill, and we both know it.”

Vik sighed. “God save me from smart interns.”

“I've got a plan.” I said, and stepped aside so he could see what I had in front of me.

He hissed a breath. “Kid, no, you can’t! You said it wasn't finished.”

I shook my head. “I said it was ready for testing. No time like the present.”

“But kid!” Viktor began, then paused and ground his teeth. He might have been able to eat the charity case if Mom’s system had been stronger, but near-malnutrition and chronic exhaustion and high stress had broken her body down too far. He'd expended a lot to get her stable enough that she wouldn’t decline and die.

Too much.

Financially, it would have been better for her to die.

But that was unconscionable. He'd followed my lead. In panic and grief I’d made my bed, now I would lie in it.

Not that I’d make a different choice when calm. But I'd have realized the price from the get-go.

I picked up the ugly piece of chrome. “This will give me an edge, help me not die like a two eddie cyberpunk.”

Vik pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “You're sure it'll work?’

I shrugged. “Sure as I can be. Vik, I hate to be an ass, but if you don't chip this into me, I'll find someone who will. I will not let your goodwill be your downfall. Please Vik, it's the only way.”

Viktor Vektor stared hard at me for several seconds before sighing again. “Okay, come on, lay down on the chair. You won’t feel a thing, Alex.”

My shoulders sagged in relief. Unable to speak, I did my best to smile. “Thanks Vik. I owe you…too many.”

His return smile was the saddest expression I’d ever seen him make.

And Chapter 3! Here we see Alex's running start down the path of being a bad person!

Please, feel free to leave me a comment.

=][=
Awareness returned instantly, a moment after that, so did pain. A constant, thrumming ache that ran up my back. My vision was weird, simultaneously blurry and crystal clear.

A couple blinks later, my HUD came up, at once there and not there.

“How’re you feeling, Alex?” Vik asked with forced joviality.

I turned to look at him and croaked. “Like I went three rounds with Jackie having a bad day.” 

He huffed a laugh. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” He extended an inhaler. “Two puffs now, two every two hours till that runs out.”

I put the inhaler to my mouth and followed his instructions, the chemical cleared my head, energized me, and vanished the ache in my back and head. I then set up an alarm to remind me to take the rest of it. “How’s my Mom?”

Vik sighed. “Still out, looks like she’s paying some serious sleep debt, but she's stable. She'll probably wake up in a while, but I wouldn’t recommend she walk for a few days, her body will need some time to get acclimated to the chrome.”

I nodded and sat up. “I need to get started earning the money to pay you back.”

“Kid.” Viktor began warningly.

I shook my head. “I can't afford to take things slow, Vik.”

Viktor stared hard at me, then sighed. “Your brother got here a while back. He’s with your mom. At least take the time to talk to him.”

I nodded and forced myself to my feet. It was surprisingly easy. I walked to the edge of the basement where Vik kept two cots for recovering patients and pulled back the curtain. David sat next to one of the cots, staring hard at Gloria’s sleeping face.

“David.” I said, causing him to jump.

He whirled around to face me, his eyes were red and puffy, he got on my face and all but screamed at me. “Alex! What the hell, choom!? I get here and that guy is elbow deep in your guts!? What the fuck!?”

My fists twitched.

I concentrated on my breathing. “David, things are bad.”

“No fucking shit Alex! Why is she here instead of a hospital!?” He jabbed a finger at my chest. “What the fuck where you thinking!?”

Inhale, count to four, exhale, David was scared, he was lashing out because he had no other way to vent his emotions, I had to remain calm and reassure him, it was my duty as the elder brother. “I was thinking that I wanted Mom to see another sunrise. The hospital that her insurance covers is at best a chop-shop. She nee-”

David cut me off by pushing me back. “So you brought her to your back alley Ripper then chipped yourself with who knows what!?”

As he made to poke me in the chest again, my entire field of view narrowed into a pinprick, I broke through his deck’s ICE at the same time that everything slowed to a crawl.

I shut off my Daemon interface and slapped his hand to the side, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pushed him against the wall. When the world sped back up to normal, I spoke in a calm and even tone as he caught up to what had just happened. “Say nothing, listen with utmost care.”

My brother’s eyes were wide open, he nodded dumbly.

“Earlier today, after Mom picked me up, we were caught up in a gang hit. I killed six Animals.” He recoiled; I continued speaking without care. “And brought Mom here so Vik could save her life. David, she suffered near total organ failure. Had I taken her to the hospital she’d have been lucky to live till the morning. They wouldn't even have let us see her. More likely than not, they'd have just chopped her up into parts and burnt the rest.

“Vik saved her life, he replaced quite a few of her internal organs. Had she been in better health, they might not have failed, but that ship sailed. The parts alone are well over forty thousand Eurodollars.”

“Fuuuuuuuck.” David hissed.

I ignored the interruption. “Mom will take time to recover. She'll lose her job. We need a way to make money, that's what I’ll be doing. I'll need you to take care of Mom and continue going to school.”

He opened his mouth to object, but swallowed whatever he was about to say at my glare.

“I’m dropping out and they're not going to give her money back. One of us should ensure she sees a return on her investment. Yes, I chipped in, yes, I’m turning Mercenary. Yes, this is a bad idea, but it's also our best option. Stay with Mom, explain what happened when she comes to. I'm going to go start taking care of our problems.”

I let him go and went to Gloria. She'd be so goddamn disappointed in me; I was surprised by how much that thought hurt. I leaned down, gave her a kiss on the cheek and whispered. “You rest up, Mom, I’mma make things better.”

With that I left her with David and went back to my workbench. Ever since the accidental use of the Sandevistan, I could feel it, thrumming in my back, almost eager to make me feel that same rush.

I'd have to be careful with it. It had felt good to use it, that might well be addictive by design.

Vik joined me and spoke without preamble. “Well, I figured you'd want to see your Mom before getting the last few details. That Kiroshi of yours took without issue, it doesn't have self-ICE to interfere with camera systems, that's new tech and not backwards compatible. I downloaded the NCPD bounty database into your Deck, so if you run into any ne’er-do-wells, you’ll be able to see what they ne’er-well-did. And lastly,” he pointed to a few drawers in the back corner of his garage, “you can’t have your first outing while wearing a knock off nurse uniform. Look through my old stuff from my running days, you should find a few things that fit.”

I felt my throat close tight. My school uniform had been ruined, so I’d switched to the clothes I kept at the clinic. Stuff from Vik’s running days had always been sacred, he'd never once let me so much as look at them, though I think it might have been on a mistaken belief that, if I saw them, I’d want to drop everything and try for being an Edgerunner.

“Thanks Vik…for everything.”

He grinned. “Stiff upper lip, kid. Out of everyone I've met, you’ll make it work, I just get that vibe from you. Do you need me to put you in contact with someone?”

I chewed on that for a few moments before shaking my head. “If you to that now, I’d be a charity case not worth anyone's time. I need to make a splash first, something to get me on the gameboard.”

Vik nodded. “You're not wrong. You've really thought this through.”

I grinned. “I may not be the sharpest knife in the crayon box, but I like to think I have some ability at problem solving.”

Vik shook his head and handed me a paper bag. “Immunosuppressants and Neuroblockers to go with that Speedheal, your chrome is rather beefy but it's best to start with a low dosage. Keep track of your side effects and come see me in a few days, we’ll decide whether or not to increase your dosage.” 

I took them with a nod, opened them up and read through the instructions. I thanked Vik again, popped one of each into my mouth and choked them down dry. Then made my way to Vik’s old clothes.

A lot of it was not to my liking, though admittedly, most of it was made with bullet resistant materials.

It took a while, but I found a pair of black cargo pants, a dark grey shirt with ‘We Lost Everything!’ stenciled in white in the front, a black helmet and a grey colored titanium reinforced gasmask, and fingerless black workout gloves. I added my Militech bullet resistant visor, clipped on the holsters for my pistols and called it good.

After a few moments, I decided to grab Mom’s EMT jacket. The garb was usually comically oversized on her, on me it was a little small. I connected it to my deck and switched its color to grey digital camo.

I’d have to invest in some actual body armor, but that would have to wait until I had money. Until then, my backpack with its ballistic insert would have to do.

I looked at myself in the mirror. A menacing mercenary stared back. On an utterly infantile impulse, I took off the gasmask and painted the lower half of a human skull on it in Smartpaint, then connected a power source to the helmet so I could modify it on the fly as the impulse struck me.

I stared at myself in the mirror again, and a ghoul stared back, a glowing green maw clenched tight in anger.

I huffed a laugh, brought up my HUD and changed the color to a dull yellow. My right eye glowed a malignant red for the fraction of a second that my deck processed the command.

Alright. I'd need to get a lot more ammo, perhaps pick me up a shotgun.

It was open season, and the city may as well be a Safari.

=][=

I’d spent the majority of my time in the Metro uploading my personal Daemons into my new Deck, as well as configuring the OS to my liking.

Jailbreaking the Netwatch deck had, by necessity, nuked anything that had been in it. Vik had done me the favor of installing my OS into it, but while it blew my old equipment out of the water, it still had limited capacity for the programs that could be loaded into it at one time.

It also said something about Night City that my outfit drew few stares. A number of people even asked who I was cosplaying as.

I told them I was Raiden Sentai Neo Kitsch, specifically from the fourth Revengance remake second reboot, best of the lot. A few anime fans were going to be sorely disappointed when they went home and tried to find the series.

The Netdriver ran like a dream, there wasn’t a single ICE I’d run across that I couldn't crack in a fraction of a second.

I got off the Metro at Palms View Way and walked around Heywood. Most of Heywood belonged to the Valentinos, but there were pockets of Animals around the southern parts of The Glen and Wellsprings.

Thankfully, I ran across a Second Amendment. Though it was unfortunately close to the NCPD Precinct one. The man at the counter behind the armored glass wore a bulletproof vest, sunglasses indoors, and had an enviable, well-groomed beard.

He kept a wary eye on me as I approached the counter.

“Hey,” I said into the intercom, “I need iron that can get past heavy subdermal plating with enough punch leftover to shred the internals, and I need it on a budget. Got anything that would fit that criterion?”

He looked me up and down. “I might be able to help, what iron you packing?”

I placed my Tamayura and my Omaha next to each other on the counter. The guy whistled. “A man who appreciates classics, don't see many Tamayuras on the Street these days. And the Omaha is certainly not bad. I was going to suggest an Overture or a Nova, or maybe the DR-12 Quasar. But getting to three pistols, sorting out ammo would get a bit awkward. Tell ya what, tell me what budget you're working with and I'll tell you what I've got available with a decent punch.”

My mouth turned down into a frown, but you've gotta spend money to make money. “Strapped for scratch at the moment, so I’ve only got twelve hundred eddies, a bit extra set aside for ammo and some more magazines for my pistols if you’ve got ‘em.”

He grimaced. “That's tight but…tell you what. That Tamayura there is beautiful, rare to see them so well cared for, and I know a guy would love to add it to his collection. You trade that in, and I'll give you a discount on a crusher.”

I chewed on that while I browsed through his inventory. “Toss me a DB-2 Testera and a Tsunami Nue, and you've got a deal.”

He grinned. “Normally I’d say no. But I recognize guns that have had some TLC applied to them on the regular. If your iron had been a rusted piece of shit, I’d send you packing.”

I huffed. “That’s how I found the Tamayura, took me two months to get it cleaned up and back to a respectable state. Fuckin’ amateur had tossed it in the trash.”

The vendor shook his head. “Fuck it, just for that I'll toss you a discount for magazines if you hand me yours for the Tamayura.”

I ejected the magazine and emptied out the four I carried.

All told, I walked out of the store with a double barrel shotgun, several boxes of shells, a bandoleer that held twenty shells as well as one on the stock of the weapon that held eight more, and a total of ten full magazines for each of my pistols, as well as another few boxes of ammo to refill the mags with. Most of the boxes went to my backpack, but the magazines and more shells went into the surprisingly numerous pockets inside mom’s EMT jacket.

Now I just need to find some Animals to happen to.

Three hours later, I’d had no luck. Sure, I’d seen a few crimes, some asshole got himself shot trying to rob a corner stop n’ rob, and there had been a few people shooting at each other in traffic, but that had been Sixth Street attacking Valentinos, or vice versa, one can never be sure with those two.

I was about to give it up for a bust, when a gravelly roar sounded past a corner. The cold and certainty rose up unbidden and enveloped me as I made my way forward. Peeking around the corner showed me four grotesquely over-muscled…people beating up a pair of Asian women.

I say people, because two of them had rather sizeable tits, but by the tightness of their pants, they may or may not have had a package.

Taking into consideration that both boobs and genital withering were common side effects of the cheaper hypertrophic drugs in the market, and the cheaper sex change options were at best suboptimal…I didn't want to assume but I wasn’t about to ask what their genders were.

While I had been pondering that, I’d cracked through their ICE, downloaded their message history, GPS data, and had isolated the socket with their bank shards. I’d also uploaded a number of Daemons that should be taking effect right about...

The cybereyes of all of them shut down and released an electric pulse that stunned them. Most of their implants were bioware and vatgrown muscle, but the two who had their livers replaced suddenly had to deal with a severe increase to the toxins in their blood, and lastly, they all went blind and deaf.

I turned the safety on my shotgun off and walked up to them while they stumbled, shouted and cursed. Two of them started swinging at each other.

The DB-2 Testera was a ‘tacticool’ double barrel 12 gauge shotgun. It had a side-by-side configuration, it was made of reinforced polymer and steel, and had a hybrid grip. It was ugly, boxy, and inelegant, but it was solid enough to beat someone to death with it and it would still perform its primary function perfectly.

Russian engineering at its finest.

I put the barrels two inches away from the armpit of the one that had best kept his/her head, flicked the fire selector to firing both barrels at once, dug the stock into my shoulder and pulled the trigger.

The gun kicked, there was a deafening boom barely muffled by my helmet, the arm nearly came off in a welter of blood, meat and pulverized bone. He/she fell screaming, arterial spurts covering the ground where the majority of their shoulder used to be, in their thrashing, he/she tore through the last few muscle fibers that had still held the arm attached to the rest of the body.

I cycled the break action, the two spent shells popped out and I put in two new ones from my bandoleer.

I walked to the other calm one, he was calling out for a Jason and had his hand held out, his eyes moving uselessly about. I switched to single fire and put the barrel in front of his groin.

There was a flash, bits of blood, meat, and torn clothing littered the ground. He didn't scream like I’d expected, he merely stood there with a look of serene stupefaction on his face as he palpated the pulpy mass that had replaced his reproductive and urinary systems.

“Whuh?” He asked intelligently, I used the other shell to turn his neck into blood and macerated meat and left him to gurgle his last.

The last two had stopped fighting, but not because they were smart enough to realize they were beating on an ally. The two Animals had lost track of each other and were now swinging at the air and screaming profanities.

Click went the break action.

Boom went the shotgun.

Splat went an animal that lost both legs at the upper thigh, he screamed even louder when the protruding, jagged shard of wetly gleaming yellow and red bone ground into the pavement.

I clicked open my shotgun and left him behind. He’d keep while I dealt with his friend.

The last Animal had stopped stumbling around, the Daemon impairing his senses timing out as I uploaded another one. He looked around, his eyes widening in horror as he found one corpse, one overmuscled brute suffering hypoxia and rumbling giggles to themselves, and the last one holding the spurting stumps of his legs.

“What the fuck?” He said in a surprisingly high voice, huh, maybe he was a she?

Either way I shot her right arm off just below the elbow, the pellets of the shotgun macerating the meat and bone of a forearm that was half as wide as my thighs into minced meat.

She screamed, but it was hard to hear her over the pounding of blood in my ears. I slammed the stock of my shotgun into her temple, the shivering impact on my hands informed me she’d reinforced her skull, I think she fell over due more to shock than the strike, she easily had over a hundred pounds on me.

I planted a boot in her upper back and leaned my weight down, pressing her face against the asphalt, and stuck the barrels of my shotgun against her neck, she screamed harder as her skin sizzled. “Whuh, what the fuck!? You motherfu-”

“Say nothing.” I spoke in a quiet, mechanical, emotionless voice as the ringing in my ears grew deafening. I drew my Omaha with my off hand and put nine flechettes on the chest and arm of the one other still-living Animal, the action convincing it not to rummage around for its weapon as it lied in an expanding pool of its own blood. I continued as if I hadn’t noticed the interruption. “Listen with utmost care. You are a part of the so called ‘Animals’ gang, a group of lowlifes obsessed with hypertrophy and the ‘law of the jungle.’”

I pressed the barrel harder against her neck, causing her to whimper. “Well, you forgot the most important part of the law of the jungle. So I am here to remind you, and you in turn, are going to go to whatever pack of wild dogs you call your people and you will tell them exactly what I said.

“You tell them that the most important thing that the animal kingdom learned, was not to fuck with Man. Because when they did, Man would come back and decimate their pack nine times over and more in retaliation.” I shot her left forearm with the Omaha, one of the flechettes embedding itself in her bone while the rest left jagged holes, her whimpers vibrated my entire leg. “Well, consider the culling started. Did you get all that?”

She trembled and other than the occasional sob, remained quiet, so I shot her farther up the arm. Then, when she stopped screaming, calmly stated. “I asked you a question.”

“Yes, yes I got it all! Please, just let me go, please, I'm sorry okay? Just let me go.”

I holstered my Omaha and stepped away, keeping my shotgun trained on her. She stayed still for a bit, then took off into a stumbling, sniveling run.

I looked from my shotgun to the one still breathing gangster, looked over his biometrics, and switched on the safety.

Bullets and shells were an expense. A man in my position needed to be frugal when possible.

The stock slammed into the Animal’s head with a deep ‘thud,’ the hardness of his skull informing me that he had cranial reinforcement, so I raised the weapon high and brought it down again with a grunt.

And again.

And again.

His skull indented at the seventh hit. I was panting hard by the twelfth. By the eighteenth, his head was deformed to the point he no longer looked human.

The bone started making crunching sounds by the twenty-third.

Once I got to thirty, I stopped keeping count. The world blurred away into the methodical movements. Raise the gun, ram it down, up and down, up and down. I made sure not to scream, such noise would only attract scavengers.

My diagnostics program incessantly informed me my breathing was irregular, I ignored it and continued. Slamming the stock into the red spongy mass.

I do not recall stopping, but when next I became aware, I was breathing heavily as I stood over a corpse, above its jaw there was a collection of broken bone shards, blood drenched meat, and grey matter.

It took me five tries to be able to reload my shotgun, reloading the partially spent Omaha magazine was an exercise in frustration until I closed my eyes, took several deep breaths, and forced the lid closed on what was making my hands tremble. My next attempt at reloading the magazine was a little easier to accomplish. I absently scanned the bodies and saw that they all had bounties to them, so I registered the kills, and eight hundred and fifty eddies entered my account.

That was a respectable amount of money for…however long I worked. Picking their sockets and breaking the ICE on their bank shards netted me another two hundred eddies, rifling through their pockets got me an RT-46 Burya and a Malorian Overture, both of them poorly maintained and beat to shit. The last idiot had a baseball bat with nails crudely hammered into it.

I removed their ammo, set the safety on the Burya, and tossed them and the gangster’s spare ammo into my backpack.

As I hefted it and looked around, I saw the two women the animals had been beating on, their faces already starting to bruise and puff up. Both of them flinched and whimpered when my eyes landed on them, trembling like newborn foals.

As I looked at them, the pants of one of them turned dark by an expanding stain.

I turned my back on them and pulled up my GPS app, following after the one that was running home.

There were more Animals in need of culling.

=][=

Denzel Cryer, better known as the Brain, was no longer having a good day. And when the Brain didn't have a good day, ain’t nobody but nobody would have a good day.

He grunted a rumbling snarl at the sniveling coward crying on the floor in front of him. “So you just let the fucker off?”

Joanne flinched. “But he killed Jason, Matt and Homel! He was like a fuckin’ ghost, one minute we’re beating up the two bitches what didn't pay protection, the next two fuckers are dead and Homel was missing his legs! And his eye, fucker’s eye glowed red! Ain’t nobody’s eyes glow red and they're normal!”

The Brain, as usual, would have to slap the stupid out of someone. “So he got some fancy Kiroshis you stupid cunt! You should have torn his throat out!”

“But Boss! He was like a fuckin’ ghost with some magic shit! How the hell do you silence a fucking shotgun!?”

He could see the boys and gals muttering and looking around, a few of them even made the sign of the cross. Fucking weaklings. The Brain opened his mouth to yell a proper spine into them. There was a far away boom, and Daniel's life signs flatlined on his HUD.

Joanne’s eyes went wide as saucers. “Oh fuck! He's here! The red eye fucker is here!”

The Brain slapped her across the mouth to shut her up at the same time that a second shotgun blast sounded out. “Kill the fucker! Bring me his balls on a platter!”

There was a deafening noise as his boys and girls all screamed and roared and hollered, running out of the gym and toward the sound of gunfire.

Then one of them broke out into a sweat, stumbled and fell, several others started gagging, three of his boys convulsed and fell to the floor.

“What the fuck!?” The Brain reached for his Russian gun, he didn't remember its name, but it was big, it was loud, and he could beat a motherfucker to death with it.

There were firefights silenced by a solitary boom! Sometimes there was a shout beforehand, sometimes the shout was defiant, more often it was not, most often there would be nothing and his deck would inform him one of his boys or girls had just been zeroed.

His hand started shaking as he pointed it at the door, he was starting to regret welding the back door shut. The holographic sights on his Russian gun trembled too much to be useful, jumping every time the shotgun blast sounded closer. Of the two that had stayed in the room with him and hadn’t been knocked cold, one was Joanne and the other screamed and lights on his back glowed blue.

Danny had his Sandi, most everyone gave him shit for it but the fucker could fight. He rushed off in a blur, there was a flash at the door, and Danny’s head came apart, his body tumbling through the floor.

A skull faced man stepped through the door, one of his eyes glowed an angry red, the barrels of his shotgun smoking as his glowing red eye pierced into the Brain.

He screamed and pulled the trigger, he flinched at the roar of-

Nothing had happened.

He had just enough time to realize that before he felt two handfuls of buckshot bounce off his subdermal armor.

“Fuck!” he screamed more in surprise than pain and ran for cover, fumbling for his other gun. He’d expected another shot, but he got a wall between himself and the fucker without trouble.

“Oh God no, no please! I told them! I swear I was going to tell them! You got here too soon! No no no n-!”

Joanne’s pathetic begging was cut off by a pair of shots, subdued in comparison to the roar of a shotgun.

“Who the fuck are you!?” The Brain demanded, pulling out his revolver and swinging it around.

His only answer was the sound of spent shells hitting the ground and the click of the shotgun being reloaded.

“Fuck you!” The Brain bellowed. “You heard a hard-working man was setting up his operation and just had to come ruin it!? Who was it? The ‘Tinos!? Maelstrom!? I bet it was James! That fucker never could stand someone being better than him!”

The Brain’s breathing sped up, his teeth ground together so hard one of his replacement teeth cracked again. He'd come too far to let some jumped up merc zero him! He was the Brain! Give him a few more months and he'll be the number one provider of Juice in Wellsprings and The Glen!

Yes, most of his men were dead, but they’d be easy to replace.

Would he let some gonk asshole zero him? No! He was the Brain! He had the smarts and the brawns!

He activated his BioDyne Berserk Mk 3 and rushed toward the last place he'd seen the asshole, roaring and swinging his gun.

The glowy-eye bastard got his shot off first, but the Brain ignored the gutpunch, his muscle and dermal chrome enough to soak up the double load of buckshot.

The Brain leveled his revolver at the fucker and pulled the trigger. The fucker blurred away, disappearing from sight, and the Brain felt a double kick to his back, the blast of the shotgun making him stumble forward.

He turned around, revolver leading, and received another double load of buckshot to his side.

The Brain snarled and emptied the revolver, the fucker running around like a demented cockroach, but the last shot must have clipped his side, because it all but turned him around and threw him to the floor.

The Brain lost no time pouncing on the bastard, driving his fists down on Red-Eye, but the squirrelly motherfucker squirmed like a worm and kept dodging, making the Brain repeatedly hit the floor.

“Stay still you fuck!” The Brain demanded, then convulsed as lightning literally crawled up his spine, he all but bent over backwards and convulsed on the ground, trying to ride out the agony as his very spine electrocuted him. It felt like a long time before he stopped shaking, but it probably wasn't more than a few seconds.

While the Brain's body was still unresponsive, the fucker stood up, pulled out an elegant looking peashooter, and put two bullets into each of the Brain’s knees and elbows. The world went white with agony, he tried to shimmy away but the fucker put a boot on his neck and pressed down.

“Say nothing.” The bastard said as he reloaded his pistol, panting each word out through gritted teeth. “Listen, with utmost care. The following minutes will define the entire rest of your time on this Earth.”

The Brain was very glad he’d decided to put down the extra scratch for those titanium joints, had he gone with the plastic lacing, he’d not have been able to sit up and punch the fucker in the stomach.

The bastard literally folded around his fist before the Brain sent him skidding away. 

“Hah! You thought you could kill The Brain!?  The Brain is too strong! Too tough! Too fucking genius! The Brain is the strongest there is!” The Brain said as he pushed himself to his feet.

At least, he tried, his left knee bent the wrong way when he put weight on it, making him flop back to the ground.

When he looked back up in the direction the guy that had killed his men had ended up, Denzel Cryer couldn’t help but think that the peashooter looked awfully big now that he got a direct look down the barrel.

Here's Chapter 4. Do please leave me a comment.
=][=
I pulled over as the blue-white lights flashed behind me. I blinked bleary eyes as I put the van on park, lowered the window and turned the motor off.

Maybe I should have bought that energy drink? Yeah the cheaper ones tasted like cough syrup, caused cancer, rotted teeth off and may or may not cause blindness. But after three days of little sleep, sparse meals, too much adrenaline and the occasional low-dosage painkiller…where had I been going with that?

I saw the barrel of a pistol and activated the Sandevistan, tearing through the man’s ICE and readying the Daemons that would see him on the floor screaming and puking his guts out.

And realized it was the cop holding the M10-AF Lexington. I looked at him blearily. “Yes officer?”

[Keep an eye on the fucker.] He subvocalized to his partner, then to me he said. “Sir, I will need to see your license and registration.”

“Afraid to say, I only have a learning permit.” I answered. “This vehicle is not registered to me.”

He glanced at his partner then turned to me. “You stole this vehicle?”

I tilted my head. “Borrowed without permission. The Animal it belonged to wasn't going to need it anymore.”

His finger twitched on the trigger. I decided to throw my weapon jam Daemon at him. That's the problem with Smartlink coming standard on your guns. It was shameful, some of the Animals had had better ICE.

I tossed it at his buddy too for good measure.

“Animals.” He half asked half stated.

I blinked again, man I was sleepy, I looked for some music to help keep me awake. “Yes sir, I have the receipts for the bounties if you'd like to see them.”

He narrowed his eyes at me and nodded.

Too tired to manage anything with more finesse, I grabbed the folder that I’d set all those notifications to arrive at, made a peer-to-peer connection, and passed it to him.

His eyes twitched as he looked at it, then widened, then his mouth fell open. “Wait, that was you!?” He screeched.

I tried to put together an answer to his question, then gave up. “What was me?”

“The one flatlining Animals all over Heywood!?” He demanded, the barrel of his pistol wavering in a way that made me glad I’d electronically jammed the weapon.

I had spent most of the last three days putting Animals out of my misery. I glanced at my account balance and…fifteen thousand? When had that happened?

Well…at least that was expenses covered for a while. Still, the cop had asked a question, and I didn't want him getting an itchy trigger finger and learning I hacked his gun. “I needed the money.”

His mouth opened and closed a few times before he spoke again. “And…why did you take the vehicle?”

I thought back, ruminated on the eight corpses I’d piled in the van.

“I contacted a meat shop. They were going to pay good enough money for the choicer Animals. I didn’t want to drag them ten kilometers, that’d be a mess and a half. So I piled them in the van and…well, here we are.”

The cop swallowed a few times and pulled on his shirt collar. He should hydrate better. “R-Right, well, sorry to have bothered you, we’ll let you get back to your business.” 

“No problem at all, have a nice day.” I said and turned the van back on. They went back to their car, and I drove off. It’s always nice when cops don't decide to give you a bad day for no reason.

While searching for that music, I realized I had my Agent on Do Not Disturb. Turning that off, I received notifications for over forty calls.

Whoops.

I dialed Mom back.

[Mijo!?] She shouted, the mixed hope, fear, and relief in her voice making me feel rather guilty.

“Hey mom, yeah it’s me, sorry ab-”

[Alexander Martinez you are in so much trouble!]

Well fuck. “Whatever it is, David did it.”

[Don't you try to blame your brother!] Mom screeched. [Now come home this instant!]

I thought back at the already decomposing Animals I’d piled up in the van. “Uhh…I'm kind of in the middle of something time sensitive, but-”

[Alex!]

“I swear I'm not being difficult for the fun of it. There is something time sensitive I’m doing, but it's in the general direction of home. So I’ll be there in a bit.”

There was a long silence before Gloria sighed. [What have you even been doing, Alex?]

I thought back to the last three days spent killing gangsters, my too numerous bruises and scrapes throbbed. “Been working, good news, I've got enough money not to worry about rent for a while. So you can rest easy.”

There was another long silence. [And why haven't you been answering my calls? I was so worried!]

“I forgot I had my agent in Do Not Disturb.”

There was a long, soulful sigh. [Just come home, Alex.]

“Will do. I’ll be there in an hour.”

[Brat.] Mom said and hung up.

Wow, rude.

Still, I got three hundred eddies for the bodies and ditched the van at the meat wagon terminal. Maybe an Animal would get it back, maybe they wouldn’t. What I did know was that rigging it to explode when moved was a bad idea.

I thought that from the very beginning, because moving derelict vehicles is a thing, my dismantling of an IED composed of a grenade I found and a string was entirely coincidental.

People gave me a strangely wide berth on the Metro as I tried not to nap.

For my part, I read through the latest batch of messages I’d taken from the last Animal Lieutenant I killed.

The gang would likely figure out what I was doing before too much longer and shore up their digital defenses. But I’d probably be able to hit the human trafficking subgroup that Pecs had been in contact with before they plugged their information leaks.

Working my way through awful grammar allowed me to remain just awake enough to get off at my stop, the walk home felt interminable, I wanted nothing more than to get home, take a shower, give Mom the money, and go to bed.

Oh, I forgot to get a burrito for Kamil, oh well, I’ll owe him one, weird that he's giving me looks too.

As I neared the door, I came to the realization that I was still wearing my new Edgerunning gear, and I think the stock of the shotgun was peeking out.

I should probably find a place to stash these.

When the door swished open, I was confronted by the sight of my mom and little brother sitting next to each other in the couch, their backs and shoulders hunched, in front of them were a near on fully ‘droid jackass built like a brick shithouse sitting on our table, a muscular woman dressed like a mix of a boxer and a stripper, a blonde wearing a pink trench coat, and an asshole with obscenely long arms wearing a punk jacket.

I saw red and the Sandevistan on my back thundered on without my input.

=][=

Gloria had not been having the best couple of days.

By the time she’d woken up, she’d already received an infraction for missing work without calling.

She’d received a second for calling out without three weeks notice.

To top that off, her smart and diligent son had gone off the deep end and disappeared. For all she'd known he was dead, until he’d called and informed her he’d forgotten to turn ‘Do Not Disturb’ off which…God that was so Alex it hurt.

That boy may be a prodigy, but he was sure brainless sometimes.

Maine had freaked out when he finally got in contact with her. She’d tried to explain, but he’d already been almost to the door. Explaining that she could give him his money back had only mollified him slightly.

Still, at least he’d understood when she explained what had happened. Gloria felt her guts clench, she would swear she could feel the cyberware inside her thrum and whir.

“So…yeah,” she said, hugging her baby boy to her side, he was looking at Maine’s crew with a mixture of fear, which was good, and excitement, which was not so good. As Gloria opened her mouth to say something more, the door swished open.

Before she’d finished turning her eyes, her heart jumping in joy as the only other one with the biometrics for the apartment was Alex, a grey blur stopped between her and Maine, and resolved into a huge stranger with his back to her.

“Back off.” the stranger said in her son’s voice, his tone filled with such malice that Gloria felt an icy hand take hold of her spine. “Way off.”

“Woah what the fuck!?” Pilar screeched, falling backwards.

“Maine!” Dorio screamed, then froze when, faster than the eye could follow, the barrel of a pistol was pushed against her left Kiroshi.

Kiwi looked from the stranger to Maine and back, her eyes glowing.

“If that carbide plate on your left arm so much as twitches, I’ll spatter your neck across the wall.” The stranger growled. Gloria shivered; her son's voice was not like this.

She leaned to the side to look past the stranger and saw that he was holding a boxy gun tight against Maine’s throat.

“Say nothing.” The Edgerunner, who must somehow be Alex, said. “Listen with utmost care.”

Pilar opened his mouth to say something, but kept his peace when Kiwi raised her hand to silence him.

“I will give you one chance, and one chance only, leave this room, do not touch any of your weapons. Or I will kill you all.” Alex finished.

“So,” Maine said slowly, “this is the kid that took my Sandevistan?”

“If you don’t stop poking my ICE, I’m killing the big one and the muscle woman.” Alex said, his head not moving. “After that I will peg long arms with my shotgun, and I’ll tear what remains of your throat out with my teeth.”

Gloria couldn't help but wonder when her little boy had gotten so big. He seemed to tower in the room, his back so broad it took up nearly all of her vision, a small bit of metal just barely poked out of the collar of his jacket, jacking into his occiput.

That's when it finally clicked for Gloria, her boy had mutilated himself for her. The ripperdoc had said that Alex had started running the Edge, that he'd hit the ground running. He'd also refused to tell her how much the operation had cost, saying that was between him and Alex.

Her little boy, her cautious, polite, smart boy had taken up weapons to protect his failure of a mother.

Slowly, so as not to startle anyone into doing something they'd all regret. Gloria stood.

“Stay behind me!” Alex barked at her.

She ignored him, stepped to his side, and once again, slowly and gently, put her hand on his forearm and pushed down. It felt like trying to push down on a statue. “Put it away, mijo, they’re…guests.”

As was his way, he did not immediately do as she said, he weighed the action carefully before acquiescing. He took the barrels off Maine’s neck and the pistol off Dorio’s head but kept the weapons near their silhouettes rather than put them away. He did, however, allow Gloria to pull him away, Alex shifted his weight to once again put himself between her and Maine’s crew.

Maine had not blinked through the entire ordeal. “Well Redeye, you've made quite the splash.” He grinned. “Nice work, you got the whole city wondering who the new Merc killing all the Animals is.”

“Yeah, well they hurt my mom.” Alex said calmly, his voice holding a promise more than a threat.

Maine tilted his head forward in a slight nod. “So, how’s that Sandi been treating you?”

Alex seemingly relaxed, but pressed as she was to his back, Gloria could feel the taut tension in her boy’s whole body. Still, when he spoke his tone was, if not relaxed, at least conversational. “It’s difficult, I suspect it was modified to increase aggression, the activator is on a hair trigger and there’s a subroutine somewhere in it to activate without input if it reads a particular neurological pattern. That said, it has proven undeniably effective, though I fear it might not play nice with other cyberware.”

The two of them descended into a conversation of the technical details of cyberware and bioware.

Maine’s crew looked between him and Alex as if following a tennis match. And all throughout it, Gloria could see her genius little boy was ready to snap and do his best to kill everyone in the room he did not have a blood relation to.

At that point, something ‘clicked’ into place inside her, and Gloria realized she had utterly failed her son. He’d always told her he didn't want to be an Edgerunner. Unlike David, Alex had never lost an opportunity to describe how unstable and untenable that lifestyle was, how ultimately futile it would be. Alex had never once had a kind thing to say about Edgerunning, something that made his brother angry, idealized as Edgerunning was on most media.

Gloria had always feared that Alex had been trying to set her mind at ease, he'd started working for a Ripperdoc of all things! But she had not put a stop to that because the money he brought in made it so she could actually put a small amount of her salary into savings. But she'd always been deathly afraid he would throw everything away to chase the dream.

Now, after feeling awake and mostly rested for the first time in…years. It finally struck her that Alex had been telling the truth. That his job being Edgerunning-adjacent had truly been a coincidence. The most illegal thing he did was scavenge scrap and cyberware off the landfill, and he told her of everything he did so she knew where his money came from.

Her boy had thrown his future away to save the life of his failure of a mother. He couldn't go back to school with that Sandevistan in his back, she'd looked it over, it was Milspec, one of the very few things Night City government would enforce its laws on. He was stuck Edgerunning at the very least until he could pay off Gloria’s medical debt, he may well be stuck regardless.

As Maine’s crew was leaving, Gloria stepped forward and was stopped by Alex’s arm. “Maine, wait!” Alex’s hands tightened on his weapons, but other than keeping her mostly behind him, he didn't do anything more to stop her. Maine looked over his shoulder and arched a brow. “Let my son join your crew.”

For the first time, Maine’s face broke from its sternly uninterested façade, Alex glanced momentarily at her before facing forward again, and both Dorio and Kiwi stared at her in open confusion.

Out of all of them, David was the first to recover. “Wait, what!?”

“Please,” she begged, unable to meet the man’s eyes, “he’s…he’s in that life for now. I know him, his mind is made up. He’ll continue running the Edge. It’s safer to do with a crew. And you’ve heard of what he’s been doing. He’ll be useful.”

Maine studied her and her boy for a short eternity, but he nodded. “Yeah alright. We do have a job coming up, we could use the extra pair of hands.” He smirked. “Who knows, maybe the knowledge that Redeye is running with me might finally get us back into the Afterlife. I’ll shoot you the deets later.”

With that, Maine and his crew retreated. Alex did not move and did not let Gloria step around from behind him as he faced the door. A few seconds later he relaxed minutely and muttered. “They’re leaving.”

Just like that he deflated. Whereas just a moment before, Alex had seemed to fill the entire room, now her son sprawled on the couch, a tired teenager wearing cosplay of some undead mercenary.

And holding two very deadly weapons.

So not a lot like cosplay after all.

Alex flipped the safety on for both the weapons and put them on the table where Maine had been sitting. Gloria took a seat next to her boy and worked up the nerve to ask. “Alex, where have you been?” She asked, then felt herself get angry when he didn’t answer, he merely stared down at the table in front of him. She grabbed him by the shoulder. “Alexander Martinez you will-!”

Alex toppled sideways and fell onto her, she squeaked and fell backwards, fear rocketed through her body when she realized he smelled faintly of blood. A quick perusal through her diagnostics program helped her relax. He had contusions, several shallow cuts, a few burns, and he’d bruised a few bones. But her boy was alright, he was merely sleeping. Judging by his blood pressure, heightened cholesterol, and the amount of synth-caffeine in his bloodstream, he may not have slept at all since the accident.

He must have been dead on his feet for the amount of adrenaline still in his system to fail to keep him awake.

Gloria swallowed until she could be certain she wouldn’t cry in front of David. “Mijo, bring us a blanket? I think your brother needs to rest.”

David must have sensed something in her voice anyways, as he merely nodded and went for the blanket.

Alex had never been a clingy child, not like David. Precociously independent from the cradle as she’d told anyone who would listen.

And now he had used that independence to start running the Edge, because his failure of a mother had landed him with a heaping ton of medical debt.

Gloria held her boy tightly and did her best to swallow her tears.

Here is Ch 5. Where Alex goes on his first official job. And proves that his first outing just might not have been beginner's luck.

As usual, please leave me a comment with your thoughts.

=][=
I listened to Maine outline the plan for stealing the nav data off a fancy car.

It was complex, unfortunately by necessity.

We had to get the nav data from an Arasaka big shot’s car. To do that we were going to trick his driver and bodyguard, Maxim Kuze-something-or-other to drown his sorrows on a bar. With Kiwi’s help I’d use the Sandevistan to picksocket the fucker, get his carkey shard to Dorio who would copy the whole thing, which included all of the nav data for the last few months.

Everything went exactly according to plan, until, of course, it didn’t. Maxim got a call from his boss, he sighed and stood up, and shit would get crazy if he got to the car.

[Shit, kid, take the shard and take it to Lucy, she’ll have to get the info out of the car’s computer.] Maine ordered over the private channel we set up for the job.

[Nah, I got this, just be ready to hand me back the shard.] I subvocalized and triggered the program I’d dropped into Maxim’s deck the moment I'd gotten eyes on him.

[Kid! We don't have time f-!] He went quiet when Maxim stumbled, looking around blindly and swearing.

I left Dorio’s side, the buff woman looking at me with narrowed eyes, and made my way to the stumbling Maxim. “Oi, choom, you alright?” I stepped back from the blind swing and poured as much genuine offense as I could into my words. “Woah, woah! Shit, if you're gonna be an ass then you can fuck off and stay fucked off!”

Maxim seemed to finally register that I wasn’t attacking him. His eyes glared balefully at a spot a little to my right. “Wha? Who’re you?” he asked with a noticeable accent I couldn't place, sounded vaguely Slavic.

“Just someone what was drinking, then saw you nearly faceplant. Hell’s up with you, choom?”

He relaxed slightly and shook his head. “Can't see, eyes hurt.”

I took in a deep, hissing breath. “Shieeeet, lemme guess, eyes flickering on and off, image tearing, lag, off key sense of balance, back of the eye burning?”

He once more looked in my general direction suspiciously and demanded. “How’d you know?”

“I intern with a ripper, been seeing a lot of cases like yours. Lemme guess, EyeShines™ 2.9.2s?”

He furrowed his brows. “Yes.”

I shrugged. “Well, there's your problem. The NC Center of Cyberware Control issued a recall on those. Some update or other causes glitches and malfunctions till the OpSys gets overwhelmed and, well, you know what happens. Bright side, you should be good in an hour, though I’d suggest swapping those EyeShines out for some Owlbears, much more reliable and still cheaper than Kiroshi.”

Maxim definitely looked like he’d checked out a third of the way through my explanation, then he blinked and visibly went over what I said. “An hour! I don't have that time! Fuck, I'll lose my job!”

I could see Dorio tensing as Maxim’s shoulders bunched up.

I turned to her and, not daring to subvocalize, sent her a chat message. [Oi, how much longer on the download?]

[12 minutes.]

I turned back to Maxim. “Uhh…well, I am a Ripper in training? I could look into that for you? I can probably clear it up in like, twenty minutes, give or take.”

“Fuck! Okay, it is cutting it close, but yes, that’d…yes please.”

I nodded, even if he couldn’t see me, it was important to keep up appearances for anyone else that might be watching. “Alright, well, it’d be bad to do this standing, so Imma lead you to the bar, after that I need to jack into your port, okay?”

Once I had his consent, I took him by the elbow and gently pulled him to the bar, where I extended the interface cable on my wrist and plugged it into the socket at his neck.

I made idle conversation, bitching about work, commiserating about shit bosses. I lied about trying different things and giving him back his vision with catastrophic glitches and lags. Once, for shits and giggles, I returned his vision but reversed his eyes, his brain to cyberware interface giving him his left eye input in his left half of the brain, and the right eye input in his right half of the brain.

I felt bad, he almost threw up, that was needlessly cruel, and I should not have found it nearly as funny as I did.

Dorio handed me the carkey shard on her way to the bathroom, and I faffed about. I apologized and told him I was going to slot in a shard with generic vision drivers, remove the existing ones and leave him with something that, while not as good, would at least let him see until he could get a proper update with a ripper.

He agreed, I slotted in an empty shard along with his carkey shard, continued to faff about for a few minutes, then deleted his vision drivers and installed generic ones I had on my deck. “Okay, you should be good, your eyes will restart in a bit and that should tide you over, but remember, go see your Ripper first chance you get, switch those out.”

“Yeah, right.” He said as I ejected the empty shard and unplugged my interface port. I grabbed my beer and took a sip, trying not to grimace at the oily brew.

Maxim’s eyes came into focus and he looked around.

I drank another mouthful and asked. “How is it? Any artefacting? Lag? Vision overlaps?”

He blinked and looked at me and grinned. “No, thanks kid, you’re a lifesaver.” He made a fingergun at me, wiring me a few eddies. “Thanks for the help.”

Maxim ran off, going past Maine who very pointedly didn't look at him beyond a wary glance that was entirely expected in Night City. A moment later I heard a monster engine turn on and roar away.

I looked down at my drink. “Fifteen eddies for saving his job? What a cheap gonk.” I shot back my drink, paid my tab and walked out.

[Meet you guys at the rendezvous?] I subvocalized as I stepped out. Not waiting for an answer as I made my way to the nearest bus stop and called mom to let her know that the job was over, I was fine, and was gonna debrief and celebrate with Maine’s crew.

=][=

“Gotta say, with what you'd been doing to the Animals, I didn’t think you knew how to be discreet.” Maine said as I stared at Pilar balancing plates on his freakishly long arms.

Apparently, Maine’s crew made a habit of drinking after a successful job. I took a swig of my beer, Tres Equis Lager, because of course my favorite beer had transmigrated realities and referenced fucking pornography instead of the turn of the twentieth century, seriously fuck this world. At least it was mostly the same, with only a dash of gasoline taste.

“Know plenty about discretion,” I said, looking up at the giant Borg of a man. “Just didn’t bother with the Animals. Finesse is literally wasted on them.”

Maine joined me in watching Pilar make a fool of himself. “What you did today.” He began, and I cut him off.

“I know, I was out of line, but if I’d asked for permission the window of opportunity would have closed. I only went against your orders because I had a solid chance of achieving the objective while incurring minimal risk, to me, the crew, and the job.” I turned and looked him dead in the eye. “I don't intend to make a habit of it, by the same token, if I see a golden opportunity with minimal to nonexistent risk and a lack of time to explain myself and clear it with you, don't expect me to let it pass by.” I took a swig of my beer. “It may sound pretentious coming from someone my age, but I take pride in my work, always have. If I do something, I aim to do it right. If an opportunity comes with a big risk, I won't be taking it without clearing it with you first.”

Maine regarded me for a long while before nodding. He cracked a smile. “You sure you're a kid? I've never run into a kid that doesn't have his head up his ass.”

I grinned back. “What can I say? I'm an old soul.”

Maine nodded and made a finger gun at me and transferred twenty thousand Eurodollars to my account. “Everyone gets an even share, you good on your meds?”

I nodded, trying to keep the relief out of my face, with that I’d have enough to make the first payment to Vik and our expenses for a few months. “I’m a part time intern for a Ripperdoc, I get what I need pretty much at cost.”

He blinked and smiled. “Think you can hook a guy up? Getting my meds has been getting expensive.”

I shrugged. “Pass me a list and I'll see what I can do. It’s not something I can abuse. Don’t shit where you eat and all that.”

Maine nodded and stood. “Alright, I'll leave you to it, you'll get a call from me next time there's a job.”

“Looking forward to it.” I said, then surveyed the rest of Maine’s crew, Kiwi was drinking her beer through a straw. Dorio was nodding her head to the beat of reguetón blasting out of the speakers, and Pilar had thrown one of his orangutan arms around the Edgerunner girl I caught picksocketing whose name I still didn't know. Though if she was part of the crew, she might be the Lucy that Maine mentioned.

Thinking of which, I should talk to her, I’d really be rather miffed if she picked my brother’s socket.

“Yo!” said the short, sluttily dressed, pale-blue skinned girl with obnoxiously neon green hair and green eyes with red sclera that had been keeping a polite distance while I talked with Maine. She had pink Mox tattoos, the word ‘DICK!’ in all caps tattooed on her thigh, and judging by the bulges on her jacket, a pair of Unitys in her pockets.

“You’re the chick what was sitting at the corner in the bar.” I said matter-of-factly and took a sip of my beer. “I take it you were Maine’s distraction for the job at the bar?”

“Yup!” she answered with a cocky smirk, then pouted at me. “And you stole my thunder! Plugged into the guy before I had a chance to make my move!”

“Sorry not sorry.” I said and smirked back at her. “I have a thing for making people go cross-eyed when I plug into them.”

She grinned wider. We shot the shit for a while with increasingly blatant double entendre until eventually she stretched. “Well, just wanted to say, nova job with that Max asshole. I wanted to give you some shit but turns out you’re pretty preem. Name’s Rebecca, call me Becca.”

“Thanks,” I said with a nod, “Name’s Alexander, I go by Alex. Know any fixers looking for a dependable solo? I got bills.”

She barked a laugh and tossed her contact information at me. “Yer alright choom. If I get anything I’ll letcha know, see ya.”

“Stay safe.” I called out and chugged the rest of my beer. Looking around, I saw the white/rainbow haired chick throw Pillar’s arm off her and head off. I tossed my bottle in the trash and jogged to catch up.

By the sudden tension in her shoulders, I summarized she saw me coming and came to a stop. “Yo, Lucy, right?”

She looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes cold. “Yeah?”

I raised my hands, palms forward. “Name’s Alexander Martinez, I go by Alex. Saw that you frequent the Metro ‘round Corpo Plaza picksocketing ‘saka assholes. Wanted to ask you to please not picksocket my gonk of a brother. We’re short on eddies and are gonna have trouble making rent as-is and I don’t wanna deal with his bitchin’ cause he never bothered to listen to me about being observant.”

She blinked, her face softening for a moment before she scowled. “That’s it?”

I nodded firmly. “That’s it, glad to be on the team, yadda yadda. If ever you have a job and need a bit of extra muscle or an extra iron, give me a call. Exchange deets?”

She studied my face for a long time. “That’s it, really?”

“Yup. Can I bring my hands down now?”

She narrowed her eyes at me but seemingly relaxed. I still waited for the ceramic plate covering the monowire on her wrist to close.

“Why is a ‘saka rich kid Running the Edge?” Lucy asked, leaning against the wall.

I shrugged. “Not rich, I intern with a ripperdoc in Watson, at the intersection of Broadbury & Buran and into Urmland street. Mom’s a meatwagon tech. She’s working herself to death trying to get my brother and I through ‘saka school so we can get a job there and join the rat race.” I looked around and spotted a drink SCSM. “You want a soda? My treat.”

Her eyes flickered to the SCSM. “Sure, why not.”

I looked both ways on the street before crossing. No point getting isekaied again, I’ve too many goddamn bills to pay. I went to the machine, pulled out my interface port and plugged in. A few seconds later I’d hacked the machine, wiped the security footage and turned off the camera for the next several minutes, and got us both a Nicola Peach. They tasted nothing like peaches. I took a slurp of the cough syrup tasting drink with a faint apple aftertaste.

“Anyways.” I continued and gave her the rundown of my story. Her eyes widening and her face softening as I explained my situation. “So now I’m kinda desperate to pull a buncha jobs. I need to build up a rep as a reliable Runner if I wanna have a hope of getting the eddies to pay Vik back, give my ma a chance to heal, and keep my brother in school.”

She lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall. “Sounds like you got a full plate.” She took a chug of the soda and a deep drag of her cigarette. A moment later I got a ping with her contact info. “Well, if I have any job that I could use backup from Redeye I’ll give you a call. Though I mostly run with Maine.”

I chugged the last half of my soda and tossed it into a nearby trashcan. “That’s cool. You got cyberlungs?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What’s it to you?”

I pointed at her cigarette while I secured my gasmask over my face. “Cool Dark™ was found to have a mutagen in their synthbacco a couple years back. The NC Health Office had a whole stink about it, but TTT-INC paid the fines, and nothing came of it. It reacts badly with the bacterial cultures in bioplastic alveoli, so they start producing adrenocorticotropin. At first it just causes high blood pressure, but continued buildup can lead to random spikes of adrenaline, and later psychedelic or psychotic episodes. People were hollering that it caused cyberpsychosis but it really just causes cyberlungs to randomly cause a fight or flight response, anxiety and panic attacks, and increased aggression, by the time it gets to hallucinations it usually becomes terminal via cops. Either way, if you have cyberlungs or smoke close to someone who has cyberlungs, it’ll eventually fuck them up and they’ll have to get a new implant, unless they have a model advanced enough that it filters the smoke automatically in the esophagus before it reaches the bronchioles and alveolar sacs.”

She merely stared at me while I’d talked, her eyes growing a little wider the farther along the explanation I got. She stared at her cigarette for a few seconds before tossing it to the ground and stamping it out. She muttered a curse before turning to me. “You know of any brands that don’t cause issues with cyberware?”

I shook my head. “I severely dislike cigarette smoke. But if you send me a list of the brands you frequent, I’ll look into their side effects, including the ones not listed on the health page.”

Lucy nodded, still staring at the smoking remains of her cigarette. “You know, you’re alright. I was holding a bit of a grudge from when you stopped my fun in the Metro, but you’re alright for a ‘saka brat.”

I snorted. “I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t pick my socket. Needed the money to pay our water bill.”

Lucy snorted and gave me the first genuine smile I’d seen on her face. It took her from pretty to beautiful, her features softened, her eyes crinkled slightly, and her cheeks blushed a bit. “Yeah, pretty alright. See you later Alex.”

“Stay safe, Lucy.”

I wired the first ten thousand Eddies to Vik along with a message of thanks and made my way home. I’d have to pick up some food on the way, something light that wouldn’t upset mom’s new stomach, it was still calibrating.

Chapter Six. Where Alex falls into a good rhythm Edgerunning. And begins to make a name for himself.

Unfortunately, nothing can ever truly go well in the City of Dreams.

As usual, please leave me a comment.

=][=
Kiwi worked to get past the Scav’s ICE on the terminal. Truly, it hadn’t been difficult to get as far as they'd had, the building was falling apart, with holes in load bearing walls big enough for Maine to walk through.

No, the miracle was that neither Becca nor the rookie had blown their cover yet. One for being an inexperienced gonk and the other…well she was Becca.

She glanced past her AR display at Alex, or Redeye. Honestly, she couldn’t see the Animal’s boogieman when she looked at the rookie. Hell, he was looking all around, but always went back to staring at the wall in the direction the Scavs were inexpertly tearing the chrome off some poor sod or another. Considering he was a Ripper in training, he probably found it offensive in a professional capacity. It would explain why he kept tapping the trigger guard of his shotgun.

Still, why was he staring at the wall?

Alex subvocalized into the job channel. [Shit, either we’ve been had, or they're coming here to grab something. Kiwi keep your head down, I’ll deal with the three. Becca, watch my back.]

Wait, what?

A Scav stepped into the room, looking over his shoulder and saying something to the other two. Kiwi heard a sharp ‘click’ along with a coughing snap, and the Scav’s head exploded into red mist and ez-beef with a dull, hollow thudding sound.

She heard a loud guttural sound that her AR display informed her was Russian for, “What the fuck!?”

Alex was through the door before the Scav finished cursing, there was another muted cough and another hollow, wet thud. Then there was the beginning of a shout, cut off by a third shot, a gurgle, and a fourth shot and a wet spattering sound.

[Three down, according to the Recon Grenade it looks like the one on the next room isn’t reacting.] He said.

Kiwi blinked. So that’s why he’d been staring at the wall. She’d have to talk to him about giving her access to the code key for the grenades. It would have been good for her peace of mind to keep her own eye on the Scavs.

Alex came back to the room, his backpack heavier and his hands covered in blood to the forearm. He reloaded his break action shotgun and Kiwi blinked in surprise. She’d known it was an unusually bulky weapon, but she’d not realized it apparently had four barrels. Becca had gushed about it for five straight minutes. Probably because she’d recognized on sight that it had twice the number of barrels it should and that it had been suppressed somehow.

Kiwi hadn’t even known a shotgun could be suppressed.

The rookie went back to guarding, looking all over the place, his eyes never staying in one location for longer than a few seconds.

Who knows, maybe Gloria’s brat did have it in him after all.

=][=

Lucy vaguely felt her body running hot, the ice water cooling her skin, her blood just barely managing to carry heat from her brain fast enough to keep it from boiling.

She didn't like overclocking like this, it brought bad memories.

She sent another probe to the Biotechnica subsidiary's Data Fortress. It took her another twelve minutes, but she finally broke through the ICE, she plumbed the data stacks, got what she needed, suppressed the urge to leave behind a worm that would destroy their systems and files, and instead worked to extricate herself from the Data Fortress and smooth over her breach.

That an intrusion had happened would be found eventually. But with a little luck, they’d not be able to figure out what files she’d accessed.

She disconnected and stood while Kiwi and Maine muttered, stretching slowly to acclimatize herself to meatspace again, small shudders ran up her spine as the interface plugs disconnected. Her legs were still in the ice bath, but her body was still overheated, so she resolved to stay in place while she got back to regular.

She felt something dry, warm, soft and fuzzy settle around her shoulders, and got ready to zap Pilar once he inevitably got grabby.

To Lucy’s immense surprise, while she felt someone fiddling with something in front of her, her breasts remained unmolested. Once she felt meatspace stop heaving, she opened her eyes and saw Alex tying a fluffy red bathrobe closed. He adjusted it on her shoulders to better cover her chest, then nodded at her (his eyes only flickering down to her cleavage for an instant, but he was a boy, which made that peak politeness) and stepped back.

She saw Pilar standing some ways away, a much smaller and wholly inadequate towel in his shiny new gold-plated hands, scowling at the rookie.

He made to step forward anyways, a sleazy smile coming to his lips, only for Alex to take a deliberate step into his path. Pilar stood to his full height and glared at Alex almost nose to nose, and while Pilar was taller than Alex it wasn’t enough for him to loom.

Not to mention Alex was stocky with muscle. A barrel to Pilar’s pencil. And while Pilar had a lot more chrome, his chrome wasn’t for physical power and Alex had shown he was no slouch in a fight. If it came to blows, Maine would put a stop to it, but Pilar wouldn’t have an easy time of it until he did.

The two remained like that for a long while, their standoff going largely unnoticed by Maine as he went over the data she’d kleped with Kiwi. Until suddenly Pilar spat at the ground next to Alex’s foot (gross) and stalked away, tossing the towel to the side.

Alex watched him leave warily. He glanced her way for a moment before quickly turning away. Lucy got a call a moment later.

It was, of all people, from Alex. [Need a towel?]

She looked down and saw that the bathrobe Alex had inexpertly put around her shoulders didn’t so much hide her breasts as it highlighted her curves and hinted at her nipples. In a way, it was more erotic than being naked.

Lucy huffed a laugh and set about putting the bathrobe on properly. “Sure, my hair got a bit damp.”

Alex pulled a towel out of his backpack and held it out to her without turning to look at her. Man, this guy, you'd think he'd never seen a girl naked. She took hold of the towel and tugged gently. “What’s wrong with Pilar’s?” 

Alex relinquished the towel, still not looking at her. “I wouldn’t trust that towel not to be stained with…things. I’d scan it, but I think I feel better not knowing.”

Lucy shuddered as she stepped out of the tub, it was only half due to the ice water. She opened her mouth to say something unflattering about Pilar and her foot squeaked as it slid on the linoleum.

Her heart climbed to her throat, her other leg was still in the tub, she wasn’t standing in a good position to roll with the fall even as her body tried to turn into it, the edge of the tub-

There was a lurch, Lucy was in the air, her head cradled against something hard but warm. Two hard somethings supported her legs and back.

She blinked. Arms. She was held in the air by a pair of arms, she could feel the muscle in them through the jacket over them and her soft fluffy bathrobe.

Looking over herself she realized that, yes, she was indeed being held in the legendary Princess Carry. And damn her, yes, her heart skipped a beat or three.

Lucy felt her face warming. That was due to the fall.

She was taken to a couch in the room they'd been doing the hack in and set down gently. Alex knelt in front of her and took hold of her foot and ankle. “Doesn’t look like you twisted it, feeling any pain? I’m pretty sure I caught you before anything could happen, but you were pretty close to the edge of the tub when I got to you which might have been caused by bouncing off it.”

“Erm…y-yeah, nothing happened.”

He brought a hand up and lifted two fingers while he took hold of her other ankle and examined it. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Lucy did not know what she was feeling, and she did not enjoy that fact at all. “T-Two?”

“Is that a question or a statement? I'm not being pedantic, if you are genuinely having trouble discerning it this might be a serious issue.”

Lucy took a deep breath and forced her voice to sound calm. “Two.” She answered calmly and correctly three more times before he was satisfied.

Alex nodded and returned to examining her ankle.

It was so strange, the big, bulky, heavily armed skull-faced Merc, the Animal’s boogieman who had stood in front of nearly all of Maine’s crew and, according to Kiwi, had had them dead to rights with a solid chance to kill most of them. Redeye was gently turning her foot while he examined her ankle and did a rudimentary medical checkup on her.

He turned his head up, froze for a second, then looked back down at the floor and stood up. “Okay, as far as I can see, you’re good. I'll uhh, go grab you a drink.”

With that he turned and walked out. That was a strange reversal. He’d been perfectly cool and collected until he turned…up.

Lucy looked at the place he had been kneeling in, thought of what he would see from the angle he would have seen it at, and quickly brought her legs together to hide her technically soaked lower lips from view.

She looked up and saw Maine and Kiwi grinning smugly at her. Kiwi didn’t even have a face and she was still grinning smugly. Lucy still didn't know how she managed that. She felt her cheeks turning a little warm. “What?”

Maine’s grin widened. “Nnnnnoooooooothiiiiing.”

Lucy felt her cheeks grow hot, she considered tearing the bathrobe off to prove a point, but all of a sudden she was self-conscious about the act. This was patently ridiculous! She’d been naked in front of the crew more times than she cared to count!

Only…only it was different this time.

And it was so soft and fluffy, it’d be a shame to waste it.

=][=

Pilar headed to Lizzie’s, shooting the shit with Falco. He’d asked around but nobody else had wanted to come with; Maine had gotten punched in the kidney by Dorio soon as he opened his mouth, Lucy and Kiwi had looked at him like he was trash and Becca had shot near him.

That new asshole had gotten all high and mighty and said he didn't do titty bars, what kind of gonk-ass bitch didn't do titty bars!?

At least Falco had come along, word was Judy had released a new Brain Dance and everyone said it was the most nova thing since Demons and Nuns 3.5 (D&N 5 had been a disappointment).

As they neared the entrance to Lizzie’s who did Pilar see but the gonk-ass bitch and his stupid backpack he took everywhere. Oh, Pilar would enjoy this, teach the basic bitch to lie about being just as shit at the rest of the plebs.

He stopped at the door and started talking with the Mox bouncer gal. Shieeet, they even knew him, oh this shit was preem.

“Yo rook! So it turns out you’re just like the rest of us, huh!? Thought you was too high and mighty to slum it out with us other plebs!?” He said with the best sneer he could muster.

“Shut the fuck up you gonk-ass input!” The Mox bouncer shouted, brandishing a bat with nails driven into it. “Oi, Alex, this input giving you shit? Want us to break his legs?”

Pilar would blink, but he’d long before replaced his meat eyes with superior chrome. “Wait wha-?”

“DID I TELL YOU YOU COULD FUCKING TALK!?” The other bouncer at the door shouted, making everyone in the street flinch.

What the shit was going on!?

Alex put himself between the two bouncers and Pilar, his hands up placating. “Frida, Jenna, it’s okay. He’s an acquaintance from work. We get along well enough at work but don’t see eye to eye on some stuff is all.”

The two Moxes sneered and one of them spat at the ground, it landed right on Pilar’s foot, so maybe she had aimed it there. And while that was kinda hot, seriously, what the fuck!?

“Yeah, well if you say he's cool, I guess he's not blacklisted.” 

What!?

“Uhh.” As he hesitated, Pilar turned to glare at Alex, this made the Moxes heft their weapons. “I mean. I don’t have a problem with the guy, but also don’t want to be held responsible for his actions?”

The two Moxes glared some more at Pilar, then giggled. They fucking giggled!

“Fuck Al, never change. Go on in, Mateo wanted to talk to you about something. The girls need some time before you see them.”

Alex nodded, thanked them, and walked in.

Pilar and Falco stepped up and paid the cover charge, but a bat and a machete barred Pilar’s way. “What the hell, chooms!?”

The Moxes glowered at him. “It's double for you, input. Moustache over there is fine. But you gotta pay the dumbass fee.”

“What, why!?”

“Because fuck you! Now pay up or fuck off!”

Pilar grumbled, but he paid, no way was he going to miss out on the new BD. He'd already almost been spoiled!

Stepping inside, Pilar was almost floored. The Mox, as a rule, glowered and insulted, it was part of their brand. Which meant he was either on a bad BD trip or the world no longer made sense.

“Yo Alex, be my output!” Shouted a Mox serving drinks.

“Not right now Brenda, but thank you, the offer is very flattering.” The rookie answered, cool as a cucumber. Pilar didn't know what a cucumber was, but judging by the fact that there was a whole saying about it, they were very cool indeed.

“Yo Al, wanna get a drink!?”

“No thank you, on the clock. Maybe on the way out?”

“I'll hold you to that, output!”

“I keep telling you girls, I’m not looking for a relationship.”

“You’re no fun!”

There were other good natured catcalls, wolf whistles, and every woman and some of the men all but flinging themselves at him.

What happened? Since when was the gonk-ass rook with the pole up his ass a player with a game so raw he had the fucking Mox throwing themselves at him!?

The whole of the Fucking Mox at that!?

What the serious fuck was happening!?

Falco went straight for the BD wreaths but Pilar would not be denied!

He went to a corner, watching as Alex went to the bar and Mateo greeted him like they were long lost brothers. Pilar put in an order for a drink and ground his teeth when there was a ‘dumbass fee’ on the e-receipt.

When his drink finally got to him, Pilar had been forced to watch literally every Mox either flirt with Alex or treat him like family, and it was infuriating! He'd been coming to the bar for…uhh…a long time, and they still treated him like dirt!

He flashed the server with his most charming smile, the one that always made Lucy preemptively shock him. “Hey sweetheart, can I ask you a question right quick?”

The server, a pale younger girl, probably fourteen or so and mostly ‘ganic, nothing going on in her chest but she was a leggy thing, with an ass that made a guy want to sink his fingers into it. She had big green eyes, a little nose, and a wide mouth well on its way to being the very definition of perfect cocksucking lips.

She had a little blue teardrop either painted or tattooed below her left eye, and her hair was a wavy waterfall that fell to her lower back, perfect handhold. Pilar couldn't wait for her to star in one of the Mox BDs.

She looked up at him, her service smile needed a bit more work, but she was probably still green, so he’d let it slide and give her a good tip just cause of the mental image of those lips wrapped around his-

“Yes?” The girl asked, needing to almost shout to be heard over the music.

Pilar reminded himself to think with his second most important head and said. “Sorry to keep ya, sorry to keep ya. Just was curious is all. That guy over there? With the backpack talking to the bar guy. What’s his deal? Never seen the Mox treat a guy so well.”

The girl’s face split into a shy smile that made the one she gave Pilar look like a sickly, dying thing. He knocked some eddies off the tip he was going to leave. “Oh, Alex? He's a great guy. Sort of became the Mox’s unofficial Ripper.”

The hell? “Unofficial? How’d that happen?”

The girl scrunched up her face cutely as she thought, the tip went up a few eddies. “Well, I heard it from the friend of a friend of a coworker of a friend. The whole thing started before I was working here. Apparently he was doing work fixing the building’s wiring. One of the girls had a bad reaction or something, and he just…treated her. Saved her life, did a whole checkup, told her a bunch of stuff to watch out for and put in a word for her with a Ripper to get alternate meds on the cheap. Then went back to doing wiring and checking the building’s terminals.” 

She tucked some of her hair behind an ear, looking at the rook with a pouty ‘I wanna jump his bones’ face and cute little blush. Her tip fluctuated but ended up rising a few eddies. “There's not a lot of detail to the story. Some of the girls asked if he was willing to do the whole doc thing. He said yes. Now he does a monthly check-up with us. Charges very little or none at all and if the Mox needs chrome, he finds good deals that’ll play well with whatever other chrome the girls have. I don't really know much about that stuff, but I'm told he barely does a mark-up. Apparently, there’s a betting pool for who…Erm…that doesn’t matter. A-Anyway, anything else sir? I need to go back to work!”

“Nah sweetie, thanks a bunch.” Pilar said and wired the girl her tip. She squeaked and bowed to him and ran off.

Pilar shot back his drink and went to sit at the BD station as one of the Mox ladies came by and took the rook to the back. What kind of gonk-brain gets a whole gang of fine-ass ladies hot to jump him and then doesn’t indulge?

Pilar put the BD wreath on and selected Judy’s latest masterpiece. He’d worry about figuring out the dumbass kid later.

=][=

Becca was pissed.

Normally, this fact would be followed by bullets flying. She was a mercurial thing, that was a good word, ‘mercurial,’ she’d heard it in a BD or something and liked it.

She couldn’t help but think about the unfairness of it all. She'd gone off to do a job, and everything was going just fine until she ran into a ‘borg asshole with dermal plating so heavy that none of the iron she was carrying could pierce it.

One thing led to another, a testicle may have been blown off. Point was, she ended up with her arms and legs duct taped together, a rag that tasted like someone had had a little too much fun with it shoved in her mouth, and another strip of duct tape had been put on top, which would just ruin her makeup.

Also, she had spent the last ten hours in a briefcase. And while she enjoyed the fact that she was able to unironically call herself travel sized, Becca was not a fan of her current situation.

The case opened up, her Kiroshis compensating for the sudden glare allowed her to see Maine and the crew sitting on ratty ass couches with ‘strom assholes pointing guns at them. Maine looked murderous while Alex looked awesome and inscrutable, his face a green skull with a glowing red eye.

Her gonk of a brother was jeering, probably getting off on seeing her all tied up. Kiwi and Lucy had the glassy look they got when they were hacking something.

Becca only hoped Dorio would let her live this down.

Things were getting heated, shouting was happening, guns were waved about, and Becca was not going to get to have any fun whatsoever in the coming fight.

Then the world blurred, she was on the floor behind Maine, her arms and legs free and holding Alex’s familiar and boring-ass Omaha.

+Waste the fuckers.+ The Maelstrom asshat that had replaced his whole face with an ancient drone scanning suite calmly and loudly stated through his monotone voice synthesizer.

And then they started vomiting, keeling over from heat stroke, dancing in place as their chrome electrocuted them, their guns failing to do anything when they pulled the triggers and their chrome jammed when they tried deploying it.

Becca and the crew shot them all down in a one-sided slaughter that was over far too quickly. By the end, Becca’s throat hurt too much from laughing.

Sure, her arms and legs were screaming at her, her body rebelling after spending too much time cooped up. But she was free and she got to shoot, so she wasn’t going to complain.

“Oi, where the fuck’s the rook!?” Pilar shouted.

Everyone blinked and looked around, Alex was not in the room. He’d freed Becca, given her a gun, and booked it.

Lucy clicked her tongue and said nothing. Dorio looked hurt and disappointed. Kiwi was Kiwi and Maine looked livid.

“He's off the crew,” Maine growled out as he finished wiping Maelstrom brains off his fist and stalked out of the room, the rest of the crew falling in behind him, “ain’t no way we can trust a guy that ditches us in a fight. Lucy, Kiwi, good job on the hacks. But keep sharp, we’ll have to fight our way out.”

Lucy sighed. “That was all Kiwi, I was still stuck trying to get through their ICE.”

“Wait, what? I thought that was you?”

“Huh?”

Maine was clearly about to demand they stop talking in circles when they ran into the first couple of dead ‘strummers.

“Whuh?” That was Pilar, as always with the smartest summary of the situation.

Everyone got their iron ready and crept down the hall toward the exit. Every few rooms at the meat packing plant they'd find a dead gangster. All of them missing most of their head. A few seemingly drowned in their own vomit.

When they got to the lobby, Becca saw the second most beautiful thing she’d ever seen in her life.

Redeye, sitting on the back of the huge ‘borg that had punched her down and tied her up. He was completely dwarfed by the dead ‘strummer, one foot resting on one of the dead ‘borg’s triceps, the other on the remains of the back of its head, still spurting white bioplastic blood. His back was hunched and he was breathing quickly and deeply, as if he’d just stopped sprinting.

He looked up as they arrived, his glaring red eye set in the blood-spattered green skull making Becca break out in gooseflesh.

“Hey.” He said, his voice husky as he spoke between pants. “Glad to see, everyone is, alright.” He took a deep breath and spoke in a more natural rhythm. “Hey boss, hope you don't mind my securing the exit. Figured you lot had the fight back there handled.” He stomped on the head of the dead ‘strummer, making a bit of brain that was still in there plop out. “This one was on his way to come up our tailpipe, figured it would be best to stop that happening.”

“Uhh,” Maine grunted, clearly not knowing how to handle the guy he’d just fired having taken up the rearguard all by himself and massacring the ‘strummers.

“Well done, Alex.” Dorio said like she hadn’t just written the guy off as a lost cause.

“Y-Yeah,” Maine said, recovering. “Good job Alex. You're a credit to this crew.”

“Wait!” Pilar whined, “I thought tha-”

Dorio cut him off with an elbow to the gut.

Geez, her gonk of a brother needed to learn to read the room.

=][=

“Here are the meds.” Alex said, plopping down a large bag filled with all the stuff Maine needed to stay regular. For one quarter the price it would usually cost him.

Adding Gloria’s kid to the crew was turning out to be the best decision he'd ever made! All the savings he was making on meds made sure he could be even stronger.

“And here's that list I promised you.” The Rook said, plopping down a shard. “They'll all play well together and will allow you to keep your current ‘ware loadout while cutting your neural load by at least half.”

And that was the downside to having an intern Ripper on the crew, he was always on about what he thought someone had to do with their ‘ware. Kiwi and Becca had spent a big load of their eddies making changes to their ‘ware and they swore by the kid. But they were not any stronger, and unlike them, Maine couldn’t afford to backtrack.

Maine had spent a good long time getting to the point he was at. And he needed to keep getting better, to keep his Edge now that he was stepping up into the big leagues.

“It'll be fine kid, I'm nowhere near my limit.” Maine said, brushing him off.

The kid shook his head. “Maine, this is no simple thing. The meds you’re taking? They’re heavy, very heavy. Royally fuck up your system heavy. If you start noticing your hands trembling, mood swings, or hot flashes; Let me know, those are symptoms for bad things and your meds and Cyberware will need to change to get you homeostatic again.”

Maine clenched his fists hard to make sure they wouldn’t tremble.

The rook continued, hopefully without noticing. He was annoyingly perceptive at the worst of times. “Now, this is worst case shit, but if you notice you have blackouts or gaps in your memory, you tell me immediately. Vik and I will clear our schedule, remove ‘ware to lessen your neural load, and we’ll figure out the better ratios and ‘ware while you detox. The rest of the crew will be able to handle some smaller jobs while we get you regular. Okay?”

Maine reminded himself that punching the fuck you got cheap meds from was, logically speaking, a bad idea. Where did the ‘ganic fuck get off telling him how much Chrome to chip in?

“I’m fine.” Maine said gruffly, taking his meds and turning his back on the kid. “You just make sure you're ready for the next job.”

Judging by the sound of it, the kid followed after him for a few steps before giving up and leaving.

Passing by a Buck-A-Slice, Maine put the dumbass Rook out of mind, grabbing a neuroblocker out of the bag along with a highly concentrated depressant and injected them both into his neck. He instantly felt his nerves settle, the trembling of his hands easing.

Maine made a note to see a different ripper, his usual guy clearly did shit work. Fucking up his nerve connections and making it more difficult to control his hands. 

His Ripper sent him a text, the adrenal booster and synaptic accelerator he’d ordered had arrived. It wasn't a Sandi, Gloria’s kid had taken that. Fucker probably couldn't handle that ‘ware, it should have been Maine’s.

He punched the wall, his metal fist sinking into the concrete as if it were stiff cardboard. Gloria’s fucking idiot kid, where’s he get off telling Maine what ‘ware to chip? He was weak, leaning on Maine’s milspec Sandevistan to cut it as an Edgerunner. So proud of his soft ‘ganic ass.

Maine wiped the sweat running down his face. The Weather Watchers™ had been off about the damn weather again. It was supposed to be a cool front coming today, but it was hot as balls.

Maine stumbled as he walked face first into his apartment door. He blinked and looked around, having to admit to himself that he was in his apartment building. In the hallway, in front of Dorio’s door.

Man, how badly had he zoned out that he hadn't even noticed when he got back home, maybe Dorio would get a kick out of hearing how he walked back home on autopilot.

He absently wiped the spots of blood on his fists on his pants as he stepped through the door.

Chapter 8. Where we see some fallout, as well as glimpses of things that have been going on in the background.

And war crimes. Can't forget the war crimes.

Please do leave a comment!
=][=
He was tired.

No, he was exhausted.

But he pushed himself to run one extra mile, the desert air and the unfinished highway called to him. He had to keep running, otherwise what was it all for?

He barely felt the recoil as the shotgun roared, the screaming woman in front of him came apart in a welter of macerated organs and blood. 

He saw a vaguely blue shadow to his left, his Reflex Tuner sent an impulse through channels both ancient and recently carved, his left arm was up and the projectile system hurled a round at the threat, the action automatic, bypassing the hurtle of his conscious mind.

It was only after the shadow was turned into meat paste that he saw it had been an unarmed boy wearing a blue shirt.

A small impact rocked his head slightly to the side. He turned and pumped three rounds of eight-gauge shells into the threat.

The first set of five pellets tore the arm of the screaming, crying man firing a Lexington off at the shoulder. The next two sets tore him into nine separate pieces. It should take him a further two minutes to flatline, but the threat was neutralized. He changed out the magazine and looked for the next threat.

Three more shadows died screaming before he felt more than saw the threat. He drove his fist at the movement, a huge, muscular blonde woman dodged the attack by the slightest margin. She stabbed a hypo toward him and he discharged his micro-generator. The electric shock locked her body for the split second he needed to backhand her so hard her skull crumpled like paper beneath his fist. Her head deforming as one of her kiroshis popped out of her face along with a fountain of blood and brain matter.

He felt the telltale hammer blows of bullet impacts ricocheting off his dermal plates. He turned and saw a small blue girl firing two Unitys at him. He snapped the Crusher up at her.

At the last instant, a tall, thin man with long thin arms threw her out of the way, and was cut in half for his troubles, steaming intestines falling out of both his top and bottom halves.

He aimed to finish off the screaming girl who was still shooting at him when she disappeared in a grey blur.

His Self-ICE burned, the heat giving him an instant headache as his implant protected him from a surge that would overload his Chrome. Following the prompt in his HUD, he saw a pale girl with colorful hair peeking out of a wall to glare at him, highlighted by his Self-ICE as the one that was trying to hack him.

He shot her, but like with the blue girl before, a grey blur took the threat away before he could pull the trigger.

A skull-faced enemy in black and grey armor and coat appeared directly at his side, an instant later there was a titanic impact that nearly sent him sprawling.

His HUD informed him that his anterior left lateral subdermal plate was shattered. The skull-faced attacker blurred around his fists as he tried to swat the bastard like a fly. The threat releasing another quadruple barrel of slugs into him at point blank in between his own swings, piercing his armored jacket and boring through most of his subdermals. At the same time, his Self-ICE blocked another attempt to hack him, this time from the Grey One, the implant giving him a warning as its heatsink began to bleed heat into his brain.

The barrage of low caliber fire returned. Maine snapped off a shot at its origin point, the action causing the blur to retreat momentarily.

Now knowing how to deal with this threat, he concentrated on destroying the ones who weren’t the Grey One, the Grey One was the biggest threat and he would kill it before it could harm the others. It would slip eventually, and when it did, it would die.

His Self-ICE burned, warning him that the heatsink was overtaxed.

He shot his projectile system at the red outline in his HUD, catching the barest hint of a pink trenchcoat as the outline threw itself out of the way, not taking the blast directly as the wall it had been hiding behind shattered.

He snapped a shot with his Crusher, there was a Grey blur, a welter of blood and meat, and an arm in a black sleeve fell to the ground.

He was uncontested, the Grey One neutralized, he had to find the next threat, the others would not be safe until he made them safe.

The Grey One stepped out from behind cover, his right arm was gone and his side was covered in blood, a belt tied tightly on the stump.

His Self-ICE shorted and bricked. And he felt his limbs seize up. The Grey One glared as he walked forward, a single Red Eye shining from the depths of its skull face.

He brought his Crusher up and pulled the trigger, but the weapon refused to fire. He tried to charge forward, but his legs refused to move.

His heart hammered against his chest, he tried to move away, to buy time, but all he managed was to fall down. He couldn’t figure out how to crawl. The monstrous Red Eye got ever closer, the sand and grit of the highway crunching under its boots.

It reached him, pulling a small pistol out and shoved it in his mouth, tilting it up. He heard and felt the whine of the rail powering up.

He forced himself to flop his arm up, he didn’t need to get center mass, he just needed to incapacitate the threat.

He triggered the projectile system, and the barrel got stuck as the slide plate refused to slide.

No, it can’t end like this. He had to keep running, he had to keep everyone safe.

“I’m sorry.” The Red Eyed Grey One said, his voice husky and tight with pain.

Then the pistol discharged and the world descended to static.

David sat up with a strangled gasp, his heart hammering, he pawed at his head to make sure his skull was still in one piece, his tongue questing over the roof of his mouth in an instinctive search of the flechettes that killed him.

He looked down at his BD Wreath with disgust.

That had been Alex.

He’d upgraded his gear again, went and took down some Cyberpsycho in downtown.

It wasn’t fair.

David had always been second best. He was smart, but not as smart as Alex. He got good grades, but not as good as Alex. He made money to help Mom with bills, but not as much as Alex.

Now Alex was doing what he’d always wanted to do, getting what David had always wanted to get. Jobs, prestige, and adventure.

He’d taken David and Mom to meet an old lady at the Afterlife club. The bouncer had known him by the name ‘Redeye,’ the old lady they’d gone to meet was none other than Rogue Fuckmothering Amendiares!

They were taken to a private booth in the back, the Queen of Night City Fixers then legit proceeded to talk about being a mom and exchanged baby pictures with Gloria!

It was a surreal experience.

But the most infuriating thing was, Alex still shat on Edgerunning at every goddamn opportunity!

Now he was going to get an awesome new Cyber-Arm and he was probably going to bitch about that too!

It should have been David.

David didn’t get to escape from Arasaka Academy.

David was still the one getting shat on.

David was the one who wanted to be a Cyberpunk.

Maybe he should go to Doc? He could get chipped in with something nova, be his own Solo. Have his own adventure. Make his own money.

Yeah, like that was going to happen.

[Yo David, why so quiet choom?] Doc said on their call. [You just got the best hot off the shelf genuine JK special! You should be talking about how awesome this shit is.]

David blinked. He almost asked. “Yeah, sorry, this is preem shit doc. Who was that guy at the end?”

[That’s Redeye, up and coming Solo that’s makin’ waves mon! Word is he seduced Rogue Amendiares, the preemest GILF in Night City! Ain’t nobody mess with a guy that got balls that big and game that raw.]

‘No,’ David thought. ‘He actually just got Rogue to talk about Mom stuff and gush over baby pictures.’

He almost asked. He almost said it.

Chip me in, I need Chrome and an Iron. Take charge of my own destiny. Build up my own rep.

But, of course, he didn’t.

David didn’t want to be second best in this as well.

=][=

“Yeah, sorry Mom,” Alex said as he spoke next to her, his glowing eye indicating he was on a call, “yeah, yeah…sorry, but it really is for the best that I’m not seen near home while the heat dies down. Yeah, yeah, I love you too.”

He sank into her couch like a puppet with its strings cut, his new chrome arm whirring and clicking, the black plates of its carapace reflecting little light.

“Thanks for lending me the couch, Kiwi.” He said without opening his eyes.

“Don’t mention it,” she said, taking a drag of her cigarette, it wasn’t her usual brand, turned out her usual brand would have eventually made her go Cyberpsycho.

Kinda like Maine.

She couldn’t help remembering the barrel, it looked enormous as she stared right down its length. When she had been covered in hot, sticky blood, she figured she’d died.

Turns out she had been covered in Alex, and not in the fun way she wouldn’t mind too much.

The ki—no, Alex lost his arm saving her life, she couldn’t trust him fully, but she was willing to put him up for a bit, maybe pawn him off on Lucy in a few days.

Besides, if he tried anything, her ceiling turret would take care of the problem.

Never trust a soul in Night City.

Still, he did lose an arm for her, one should always pay her debts.

“Hey Kiwi?”

She turned to look, and saw him staring at his newly installed, shiny chrome arm. Well, not really shiny, but still. “Yeah?”

He opened and closed the reinforced hand. The arm was something he’d salvaged from the landfill, but the hand had been Pillar’s, donated by Becca once Alex’s Ripper told them he didn’t have a hand that would slot into the arm.

Thank god he’d replaced that gaudy gold-plated covering, and modified it to have the regular number of bends in the digits.

“Thanks for earlier. For saving my life, I mean.” Alex finally said.

She snorted. “Don’t mention it, it was just a belt.”

“No.” She turned to meet his eyes at the declaration. His stare was intense, enough to make her reflexively prepare her hacking interface. “You saved my life, when I went to kill Maine. You jammed his projectile system.”

She tried to look away, but found she couldn’t, the sheer intensity of his gaze holding hers hostage. Kiwi took another drag of her cigarette. “Noticed that, did you?”

“Yes,” he said, then reached out with his flesh and blood hand and took hold of hers. “I owe you a lot more than my life, Kiwi. If you hadn’t stepped in, I would have been done for. My mom would have learned of my death on the news, I would have died leaving my family to rot.

“I pay back my debts, Kiwi. If ever you need help, no matter what it is, ask. I will be there.” His hand squeezed hers to the point that it hurt a little. “Do you understand?”

Kiwi felt bile rise up in her throat. Something churned in her stomach, she pushed it down ruthlessly, whatever it was.

Never. Trust a soul. In Night City.

“Anything I need? What if I tell you to kill someone?”

“Name them. They’re a dead man walking.”

She broke eye contact. Never trust…

“So if I need rescue from a megacorp?”

“Even if I have to go Johnny Silverhand on them, I will make sure to get you out.” Alex stated with utter conviction.

She wanted to tell him he was an idiot. That nobody would ever do something like that. That only an idiot would risk their life for someone else without a big, fat paycheck at the end.

“Anything I need, huh?”

The barrel of the gun had looked huge. The hot blood seared her skin where it touched it. She fingered the scratch on her faceplate where one of the bones in Alex’s arm had ricocheted off it.

She couldn’t trust him. Not fully.

But Kiwi understood debt.

She found herself squeezing his hand back. “Thank you, Alex. I will not waste it on something frivolous.”

=][=

Faraday set the video to play again.

The firefight was not long. As far as Cyberpsycho rampages went, it was a short one. It had the second least number of casualties of all rampages across the Americas in the last three months.

Hell, there was a chrome junkie with one fifth the chrome that had gotten six times as many kills before MaxTac arrived.

He set the video to play again. Watching as Maine killed six civilians before he pulped the head of the muscle woman he called his input. Then killed the second most experienced Runner on his crew.

Then the Rookie stepped in, fighting like a veteran, he dismantled Maine in seconds, his only weakness being sentimentality. Foregoing openings to end the fight to protect the lives of those of the crew that yet lived.

Maine’s crew was burned, they’d lost their three most experienced Runners, and while Kiwi was as experienced as Dorio or Pillar, her talents made her unsuited for the base violence needed to get a job done.

No, he’d have to move the Tanaka job to others, which was a shame, Maine’s had been the best Faraday had access to for that little money.

He watched as the rookie dismantled Maine and, even missing his dominant arm, executed him.

Perhaps the crew still had potential.

He indulged himself and watched the video one final time before getting back to work.

=][=

Tanaka snapped out of the XBD with a gasp. His nerves on fire and his brain tingling with the feeling of flechettes boring through it.

He mastered himself quickly. Jimmy Kurosaki did excellent work as always.

Still, that Edgerunner, the one with the red eye…that had potential.

He was chipped with something tuned up to illegal levels, a Sandevistan if Tanaka were to make a guess.

There was the project that had been put on hold since the Lieutenant Colonel got himself killed.

He composed an email to his secretary, ordering her to get with the Arasaka Intel division to find out who the red eyed mercenary was.

With his duty done, he lay back and restarted the BD, perfectly tuned BDs could not be properly appreciated in only one watch.

=][=

Lucy welcomed Alex into her apartment.

Truth be told she was a little nervous, the boy was inscrutable. He didn’t make sense.

He was a corpo wannabe rat, but he was the terror of the Animals in Night City. He was just a smarmy punk who, as far as she could tell, had never been in a relationship in his life, yet the Queen of Night City Fixers was seemingly sweet on the guy after he walked up to her and chatted with her for hours, when she wouldn’t give a Cyberpunk with years of experience the time of day. He was a ruthless killer, one who kidnapped gangsters and tortured them to death while testing custom made Black ICE, but he’d risk his life and sacrifice a limb for the safety of the crew.

He'd saved her life during the fight, when she’d driven him to Vik, she noticed a huge dent on his helmet.

Taking into consideration that he’d literally carried her away from danger, that shotgun pellet had been meant for Lucy. He’d almost lost his head getting her to safety.

“That’s a pretty neat poster.” Alex said, snapping her out of her thoughts.

He was staring at her Lunar Trip poster. “You think so?”

He nodded. “Though a bit stiff pricewise. Half a million eddies just to get there and back? Ugh. And don’t get me started on immigration.” He sipped his NiCola. “But space, the final frontier? Seeking strange new words and blowing up Eldritch monstrosities? To go where no man has gone before? It’d be pretty nova to be a space garbage man that occasionally dabbles in monster slaying.”

Lucy stared for a few moments before snorting. “I don’t think space works like that.”

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies.” Alex said with a grin. He turned back to the poster, then looked out her apartment window as a rocket was being prepped for takeoff. “I take it you want to go to the moon sometime?”

Lucy felt her hackles rise but managed to keep a level tone. “Yeah, what of it?”

He shrugged. “Seems pretty neat, wish I had the money to toss away…not sure I’d want to live there, but it would be pretty fuckin’ nova to faff about and throw space rocks.” He turned back to her with a sly grin on his face. “Maybe see if I can toss one hard enough to achieve escape velocity.”

Lucy found herself smiling back. Her mind going to the numerous times Alex had helped her. A not insignificant number of said times, it was to stop Pillar from getting handsy with her.

As unflattering as the thought was, Lucy did not feel much besides relief at the techie’s death. She felt for Becca’s loss, but truth be told, before Alex had begun to intervene, Pillar’s constant and ever escalating advances had made her worry that she’d need to choose between staying on the crew, or doing something drastic enough that Pillar would finally get the memo.

Sure, now there wasn’t a crew. Two hackers, a driver, a Solo, and a crazy midget with a chip on her shoulder did not a crew make. But that didn’t invalidate that Alex’s involvement had been a net positive for Lucy.

At first, she’d worried that his game was the same as Pillar’s, just longer term and more competently implemented. But Lucy was forced to admit, Alex may well just be a good guy.

Losing an arm for the sake of saving the life of Kiwi, was pretty strong evidence.

While she’d been lost in thought, Alex had sprawled on her couch, staring at the ceiling.

She went to her window to look at a rocket taking off. She considered lighting up, but Alex had been pretty open about his dislike of cigarette smoke. 

“Hey Lucy?”

“Yeah?”

“What comes after you go to the moon?”

Lucy blinked, opening her mouth to speak, but she had nothing.

He said it so matter-of-factly. Like her going to the moon was a given.

But…what did come after going to the moon? “I’m…not sure. Its just been my dream for the longest time, I honestly don’t know what comes after.”

He hummed a non-answer and stared at his metal arm.

She suppressed the urge to fidget and said the first thing that came to mind.

“So, what’s your dream?”

Alex didn’t answer at first, a twitch of his lip the only indication he’d heard her.

He stood slowly, glaring at his chrome arm, and made a fist.

“I want to be powerful.” He said. “I want to be so powerful that even Saburo Arasaka will be terrified of me. I want to be so goddamned horrifying that the very idea of hurting those I care about, will make everyone involved wet their pants.”

He turned to her, and she had to force herself not to react. His eyes were cold, flinty. They were missing something, something subtle but vital, like first generation cybereyes.

He continued talking, his voice still far too calm and lacking inflection for what he was saying. “I want those I care about, to be safe and happy. To have a guarantee of safety, purely because anyone who might harm them, would know beyond the shadow of a doubt, that my wrath would be ruinous in retaliation.”

He turned back to his arm, now that he wasn’t looking at her, Lucy felt an invisible pressure vanish, allowing her to once again breathe deeply.

She huffed out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

She turned back to the window, at the rocket taking off from the launchpad. Heading to the moon.

‘But what comes after?’ asked a wriggling doubt in her mind.

She didn’t have an answer. And she didn’t like that fact at all.

“Hey Alex, wanna scroll this BD with me?” She asked on impulse.

=][=

Viktor made his way to the back of his clinic, where he kept the flash clone vats.

Alex stood there, surrounded by six emptied out vats, the smell of saltwater and blood heavy in the air as he muttered something at the seventh.

Viktor did his best not to look at the misshapen lumps in the tray marked for incineration. There was a good reason why only pieces of a person were cloned at any one time. 

“Alex?” He asked as his protégé began the decanting procedure on the seventh and final vat.

“Oh, hey Vik.” He answered with a tired smile. “Sorry about the mess, I’ll clean up in a bit, okay?”

“Right.” Viktor said as he watched Alex gingerly take up the misshapen organic lump out of the vat, and made his way to a table ready for cerebral cyberware implantation. “What…what are you doing kid?”

Alex smiled softly at the tortured, gurgling…thing on his arms. “I’m ushering forth the future. Our future.” He set the thing down on the table and readied the tools.

“Right…you uh…you do that.” Viktor said and walked away.

The poor kid must have been hit harder by the death of his crew than Viktor had initially thought. He’d seemed to bounce back, diving right back into the thick of things and seemingly picking up right where Maine had left off. But grief had a way of hitting everyone differently.

At least he wasn’t hurting anyone with his way of coping with the loss.

Viktor looked at the misshapen lumps of organic refuse.

For the most part.

And here is chapter 9. Had this one mostly finished. Next in the docket is Kaiju Slaying.

Been dealing with some things AFK that have severely limited the time I could actually be on my computer and/or write. Happy to say that is (mostly) dealt with, and I should hopefully be able to write more consistently.

I'll shoot for at least a bi-weekly updates. But I can only promise to try. I do work full time at a job that habitually heaps a lot of overtime on the engineering team, of which I am a part of.

But enough about me.

Chapter Nine! Where we get the reveal of exactly what Alex was doing when he made a mockery of the beauty of Nature.

Also, because I am an idiot. I decided to cameo one of my favorite characters from another work. They won't play a big role, they're just there for the people that will get the reference.

And if you can figure out where she's shown up before in the story, kudos to you.

Hope you like, and do please drop me a comment!
=][=

I slid closer to the door, held up my left fist, and waited, mentally tapping my communication icon and subvocalizing. ‘Kiwi, Lucy, how are we looking on killing the alarm and unlocking the door?’

[Almost there…got it.] Kiwi answered.

[Cameras are spoofed, turret sensors shut down.] Lucy continued.

‘Thank you kindly. You are gentle-ladies and scholars.’

[I don’t think that’s an actual term.] Kiwi said.

“It totally is a real term.” Becca said, a little more audibly than I’d like.

[Eyes up. Scav around the corner.] Lucy cut in, a red silhouette lighting up in my vision, walking toward the bend in the corridor ahead of me. [She’s alone.]

I hurried forward as quietly as I could and raised my right fist, the metal digits murmur-quiet as I formed them into a claw. The instant the target was in range, I reached around the corner, took her by the neck, crushed her windpipe into paste and snatched her around the corner.

I tore through her ICE and uploaded the Daemons that would shut down any communication attempt. Then held her down for the short time it took her to pass out. Not wanting to leave things to chance, I pulled out my knife and stabbed it into her occiput.

The scavenger had a short seizure, the crude occipital craniotomy achieved its objective of minimizing her suffering as hypoxia claimed her life.

I dragged the soon to be corpse to the nearest dumpster and tossed it in while Rebecca secured the hallway, then we moved forward.

Rebecca disliked my insistence on the stealthy approach, our progress made easy by our two guardian Netrunners, our every confrontation was an ambush, and also thanks to them, our every ambush was a success.

We passed over a dozen bodies. All in various states of disassembly. Most showing signs of abuse both physical and sexual. Judging by the way Rebecca’s teeth ground together, she and I shared views on that particular degeneracy.

Thankfully, none of the corpses we came across were the girl we were here to rescue.

Unfortunately, nothing can ever go to plan.

[Shit, Alex, you’re two doors down, but you have to go loud, they’re about to get started on the package.] Kiwi snapped. [Bastard jailbroke his ‘ware so it has an autistic mode, and all the equipment in the room barring the security camera is analog.]

Kiwi had only gotten two thirds of the way through her explanation before I had my shotgun in hand. The personally modified Rostović DB-2 quad-barrel had become something of a calling card for me.

I wanted to upgrade to something more practical now that I had the money. But the use of the weapon had become tied to my reputation. I’d have to wait until someone did me the favor of destroying it during a job. That way I could give it a Viking funeral and finally move on.

Its quiet report was still quite welcome as it delivered slug and buckshot to armored and unarmored bodies alike. The moment the fourth shell was expended, I switched out for the Tsunami Kyubi I carried, and put the Scavs down with single shots to the head or two or three shots to the body.

If I was trying to be the best ersatz soldier I could be, Rebecca was a whirlwind of destruction. Her M251s Ajax roared and rattled in seeming imitation of its master’s laughter as she used it with all the finesse of a buzzsaw. Dumping the magazine and tearing limbs and torsos apart.

And as we fought, Scav after Scav fell to heatstroke, blood toxicity, and their own cyberware electrocuting them.

After I ran through the twenty rounds in my magazine, I switched to my Nue rather than take the time to reload. Once the Scavs realized that we outclassed them as severely as they outnumbered us, the still living gangsters broke and ran. Rebecca happily pulling out her pistols and gunning down the fleeing outlaws.

I had three rounds left in my Nue as we burst through the doors to the ‘recording room.’ There stood a tall, half-naked, overweight man with a holo-projector installed in his forehead. His face was hidden behind a blank holo-mask with a crudely stenciled smiley face on it.

He did what he could to hide his body behind the svelte form of the wavy black haired, naked girl with minimal Mox tattoos that we were here to rescue.

The revolver he had pressed to the side of her head made Rebecca and I pause.

[No smartlink.] Kiwi said impressed. [Didn’t think anyone made those anymore. With his ‘ware in autistic mode I can’t cramp up his hand either.]

"You’re here for this bitch, aren’t you?” He demanded and shoved the girl’s head to the side by pressing the muzzle of his gun into her temple, making her gasp. “Let me walk away, and I’ll leave the bitch where you can find her.”

“I think we can come to an agreement.” I said, using the trajectory analysis module I’d installed into my eye to search for an angle that would let me bounce a bullet into his eye socket.

He cocked back the revolver’s hammer.

“Drop the weapons or the little slut dies.”

Fuck.

I slipped the safety on and set the pistol down on the ground.

“But I just cleaned them earlier today!” Rebecca whined.

“Becca.” I growled.

“Fiiiiiine.” She tossed her pistols to the floor.

“Alright.” The fat scav said, backing away toward the door on the other side of the room. “You stay right there, or the slut eats it.”

“P-Please don’t let him take me.” The girl, Taylor, if I remembered her name right, pleaded. “Please!”

“Quiet, meat!” The Scav hissed and raised the revolver to hit her with the butt of the weapon.

My Sandevistan thundered on.

I ran forward in a world of seemingly stopped time, took hold of the inside of the Scav’s elbow to more easily bend his arm, and crushed his wrist in the metal grip of my right hand.

I twisted his arm and hand until I could push the barrel of the gun against the bottom of his chin, and pressed his finger down on the trigger. His head came apart in a welter of blood with all the languid grace of a flower’s petals unfolding.

I slapped his other hand away from the girl, and hunched over her, shielding her from the blood and brain matter.

The world sped back up to normal. Taylor screamed and hunched into herself as she flinched away from the report of the gun.

There was a heavy thud and a pitter-patter as the headless body behind me fell to the ground.

I wiped my cybernetic hand mostly clean of blood while I waited for the girl to realize she wasn’t dead, her breathing slowing to something more manageable before I spoke. “You okay miss?”

She whipped around, her eyes wide, clearly having recognized my voice. “Al—!”

I pressed a flesh and blood finger to her lips and gently but firmly said. “While I’m wearing this getup, the name is Redeye, understood?”

Taylor’s face turned tomato red, but she nodded.

I let go, got a pair of sandals out of my backpack and handed them to her, then shrugged out of my mom’s EMT jacket and draped it over her shoulders, I then motioned for her to follow as I reloaded my rifle, then did the same for my shotgun. Finally, I picked up my pistol and switched out its magazine for a fresh one. “Becca, take point, I’ll safeguard the hostage.”

“Okay boss man!” Rebecca said, hefted her assault rifle and ran off.

I sighed and subvocalized. ‘Kiwi, Lucy, please try to make sure she doesn’t get herself killed.’

[No promises.] Lucy answered for the both of them.

I took Taylor’s hand in mine and pulled her close, I was surprised to see she was almost tall enough to look me in the eye. I kept my pistol at the ready as I made my own slower way to the door we’d come in from. The occasional maniacal laughter, shouts of “Cock suckeeeeeeeer!” and rattle of gunfire informing me that Rebecca had found another pocket of resistance, or a survivor that stopped playing possum.

“Umm, thank you for saving me but…why…why are you here, Mister A-Redeye?” Taylor asked.

I shushed her. “Save the questions for when we get to the car.”

“Sorry.”

Exfiltration was, thankfully, done without further conflict on my part. I led Taylor to my car, then made my way to Falco’s car where the rest of my crew was waiting for me.

“Hey, thanks a lot for doing this guy and gals.” I said with a smile they couldn’t see due to my gasmask. “Sorry it was last minute, but emergency and all.”

“Eh, I wasn’t doing anything important anyways.” Kiwi said, filing her nails. “I’ll cash in this favor this weekend. I’ve got some work I need done on my cyberware.”

“Same.” Lucy said, leaning back.

“You owe me a gun!” Rebecca said with a big grin, pointing at me.

I was glad to see she’d gotten used to the customized gorilla arms. I shuddered to remember the oversized monstrosities she wanted to chip in at first.

“Yeah, yeah.” I said with a chuckle. “And you, Falco. What can I getcha?”

He tilted an imaginary hat at me. “Just have the ladies at Lizzy’s wave my cover fee to go in for a while, and we’ll call it even.”

“I’ll make the strongest case I can.” I promised with a solemn nod.

“Thank yee kindly. I’ll go drop the ladies off.”

I nodded. “I’ll drop the girl off at Lizzie’s, I’ll swing by the Afterlife tomorrow to look for an actual paying job. I’ll let y’all know the moment I have anything.”

“Cya later Alex!” Rebecca said. Kiwi and Lucy waved as the back of the van closed and Falco drove off.

I shook my head, called in the former Scav den to the NCPD, and went to my car. A heavily modified Mizutani Shion I’d claimed as battle salvage after an NCPD sanctioned job against the Wraiths.

Say what you will about the Raffen Shiv, and I could say plenty, next to none of it positive. But they knew how to mod a car. The former sports car had been transformed into an all-wheel drive, armored, off-road monstrosity that lost none of its speed. The only thing it had cost me was the cleaning service to get rid of the blood of its former owner, and a modest fee to Padre so a Valentino chop-shop would repaint it cobalt blue and grey.

I stowed my backpack in the trunk, in the hollow next to all the other gear I dragged around with me, opened the door, hung my shotgun and rifle on their racks in the panel behind the seats, next to the machete and hand ax I kept there. Then sat on the driver’s seat, closed the door, and took off at a gentle and sedate pace.

The rest of the crew gave me shit for not driving like a maniac. Rebecca in particular made sure to inform me at every opportunity that this ‘beast of a car’ was wasted on me.

But frankly. It’s hard to beat ‘essentially free.’ And while the CHOOH2 per mile could be better, I’d made enough enemies that I felt the expense was justified so I could keep some armor around me as I drove thorough the city.

Taylor sat stiffly, looking at everything but me as I bulled my way onto the heavy Night City traffic.

I rang Judy.

She picked up on the first ring, her worried face appearing on my HUD. [Alex! Were you able to find Taylor!?]

“Yes, got to her just in time.” I said, the girl in question turning to look at me as I spoke. “She’s got a few bruises and at some point she skinned her knees, but the Scavs didn’t have time to do what they were planning with her.”

[Thank God.] Judy said, slumping in relief. Then her face turned grim. [And mentally?]

“You don’t give her enough credit.” I said with a chuckle. “She’s a tough girl.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her face turn tomato red again.

Judy sighed. [Thank you, Alex. How could I ever repay you?]

I huffed a laugh. “Convince Rita to wave my driver’s cover charge for a few months, and we’ll call it even.”

She blinked and stared incredulously at her camera. [That’s it?]

Her disbelief, while amusing, was not unwarranted. My crew and I made good money, I was on direct dial with several of the more affluent fixers in the city, Rogue included.

In the months since Maine’s meltdown, I had dragged the crew behind me into, if not the big leagues, then close enough to them. I’d managed to cultivate a reputation for our crew as a group that could do nearly any job, do it well, discreetly, and with a minimum of fuzz and collateral.

Sure, getting the three girls to work together was sometimes more akin to herding cats. But I had managed to get to the point where we were making almost as much money as when Maine ran things, and due to my preference in tactics, we faced less danger, meaning less medical, repair, and maintenance fees.

Sure, I lost style points, but Wakako and Rogue didn’t put as much stock in style as they said they did. And those two were responsible for the lion’s share of my income.

Put succinctly? Judy could not afford my services, let alone the services of my whole crew. The Mox could have, but they had not invested enough into Taylor for her to be worth the expense of hiring me to get her back.

Letting them have my services essentially for free to get one of their members back for them, was not something the Mox would soon forget.

I grinned beneath my mask. “Yep. Drop that cover charge for my driver. I think Rita knows him as ‘Mustache’. Do that for me, and we’ll call it even.”

[Consider it done, choom. See you when you get here.] She said with a smile, then hung up.

“So…the Mox asked you to save me?” Taylor asked, her bottle green eyes boring a hole in the side of my head.

“Nah, you should thank Judy.” I said, dodging around an idiot that slammed on his brakes out of nowhere. “She’s the one that thought to contact me.” I gave her a quick summary of how Judy had kept trying to get me to agree to help for two whole minutes after I’d said ‘yes,’ as well as some of the detective work that went into finding her, a story that included three murders and an exchange of favors with a few of the more decent Tyger Claws. “And after that, all that was left was storming the Scav den. And so…here we are.”

Taylor remained quiet for several minutes, then brought her legs up to her chest and hugged them tight, the sight of the pale skin of her legs drawing my eye more than I cared to admit. “So…they didn’t care that the Scavengers were going to turn me into a snuff BD?”

“I wouldn’t say they didn’t care.” I refuted. “A good chunk of the Mox were mighty pissed. But the Mox, by definition, aren’t detectives. In order to turn out in the numbers needed to manage anything, they would have had to run roughshod over Tygerclaw and Sixth Street territory. Not to mention leave Lizzie’s largely undefended.” I shrugged. “In the end, it was simple economics.”

She shrunk into a tighter ball. “That’s bullshit.”

“Yep.” I leaned over and gently patted her shoulder, somewhat surprised by the fact she didn’t flinch. “But hey, I was around. So don’t dwell on it.”

The ball of justified angst loosened slightly. “Thank you, Mister Redeye.”

“Don’t mention it.” I said and drove in silence for a little while before I turned on the radio.

‘You're so full of shit, I think you've got it made. This place is perfect for people full of shit!’ the radio snarled at me.

I scoffed and flipped through the stations, not in the mood to listen to advertisements or to most songs in general. Eventually I ended up on 98.7 Body Heat Radio.

‘I couldn't wait for you to come and clear the cupboard. But now you're gone and leaving nothing but a sign’ The radio sighed wistfully.

I barked a laugh and settled back, nodding along to the beat of the song. Taylor stared at me, utterly flabbergasted.

I glanced at her, keeping the lion’s share of my attention on the road. “What?”

“I dunno.” She said. “This song…”

“Doesn’t fit my image as a tough-as-nails mercenary?” I finished for her as she trailed off. “The infamous Redeye should be listening to death metal or something?”

“Y-Yeah.” She answered with a nod.

I chuckled. “Well, don’t meet your heroes. They’ll always let you down with how disappointingly human they are.”

I mumbled along with the lyrics, getting them mostly wrong, and offensively off-tune.

That was when Taylor finally relaxed enough for the experience she just went through to catch up to her. She began to shudder and weep as she clung to my smart paint EMT jacket like it was a life raft.

With no little hesitation, I reached out to her, and held my hand open toward her. She turned and clung to it with both of hers in a death grip as she lost the battle against her sobs and wailed.

“That’s good, let it all out. Don’t hold it in where it can fester.” I said as I squeezed her hands carefully and gently. An old and familiar anger at Maine surfacing in me.

I was an apprentice ripper doc, I was quite familiar with Cyberware. And while I agreed that ‘ware was a mechanical marvel, I hated that I could no longer offer another something as primal as the comfort of holding their hand while I was driving.

I let Taylor cry herself out, at least, until the radio unfortunately shifted to something or another by Us Cracks.

The complete shift in mood and energy interrupted Taylor as she stared in confusion at the radio.

I put up with it for a whole twenty seconds before I could take it no more. “Taylor, if you force me to listen to any more of this abomination, I will kill everyone in the city and then myself.”

She let go of me and started laughing, all the tension that had been holding her together leaving her at once.

“I’m serious.” I said in a deadpan, making her laugh harder. “Literally everyone in the city.”

She snorted and laughed even harder.

Despite myself, I chuckled along with her.

I poked around the radio until I ended up on 107.3 Morro Rock, where Chippin’ In by Samurai started playing in my speakers. When that song ended, good old Maximum Mike launched into a conspiracy theory about daemons being actual demons and the net being actual hell, discovered by the people who made the internet. Gods, I loved this guy.

I left that as background noise and drove in comfortable silence, Taylor nodding off, I let her sleep until we got to Lizzie’s.

I escorted Taylor to the building, Rita meeting us at the door. She took one look at Taylor, then nodded at me. “Redeye.”

I nodded back. “Rita.”

She waved for the Mox girls to move up, and they soon bundled Taylor up in a blanket and gave me back my jacket as they shuffled the girl inside.

I shrugged my jacket back on, happy to have all those inner pockets in reach again.

“Tell Mustache he can come in whenever.” She grinned. “He drinks for free this week.”

I scoffed. “If he wraps his car around a light post, I’ll be very cross with you.”

Her grin became a smirk. “Are you going to bend me over your knee and spank my ass red?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

She snorted. “Promises, promises. Anyways, need anything from us?”

I shook my head and looked at the doors to the bar. “She’s been through an ordeal, be gentle with her for a bit. She’ll bounce back.”

“You also teach your grandma to suck a cock?” Rita snapped.

I looked at her silently, and she grimaced and rubbed her temples, speaking more softly she said. “Shit Al, I’m sorry. It’s…it’s not an excuse, but things have been volatile since Taylor got taken. It’s been nonstop to keep this load of idiots from running off and dragging the Tygers down on our heads.”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. Crisis is past, try to get some rest.”

She looked ready to tell me off but shook her head. “Yeah, okay. I’ll try and set shit up here and go crash.”

I nodded and made my way back to my car, giving Rita a parting wave. “Say hi to Judy for me.”

“Alright, come by later Al. Most of the girls would like to thank you!”

I snorted and waved her off, got in my car, and drove home.

=][=

Thanks to my success at Edgerunning, I was able to move my family out of the H4 megabuilding in Arroyo, and into a large, upper-class apartment in Palms View Way, the Glenn.

The 18th floor apartment was essentially two stories tall; it was wasteful with its space but at the same time managed to be cozy. It had a laundry room, an actual kitchen that, thanks to a few off-the-books upgrades I installed, we could get actual clean drinking water from, a small library with a beanbag chair that I wanted to throw away but that Mom loved, a bar that Mom had thrown out all the alcohol from, a huge TV, synthetic leather furnishings, and quite important to me, a room I was able to convert into my personal workshop/armory with cabinets I could lock with my biometrics.

Sure, the walls essentially being windows was a detriment, but the windows could be made opaque without a fucking micro transaction after I hacked the panel, and loath as I was to admit it, the view of the city was quite nice.

The building was near the heart of Valentino territory, and they policed it pretty well. And the old adage of ‘shit not where you eat’ held strong. So while I was not a Valentino, and didn’t plan to be one, the only jobs I’d taken targeting the gang were those that I could complete in total stealth and pin on the 6th Street or someone else the ‘Tinos had beef with.

Barring making one example about what happens when you try to extort my family, my stay had been good.

And at eighty thousand Eurodollars annually, paid up front to get a one-month discount, it was overall a very solid upgrade to our Megabuilding apartment.

“M’ home.” I muttered as I stepped out of the elevator. Even though it felt like evening for me due to the late-night scramble to locate Taylor, it was just short of midday. David was still in school, and mom was still at her new job.

I told her she didn’t need to. Circumstance may have forced me to be the man of the house, but it was a burden I took up gladly.

Still, being one of the on-site medics at the Afterlife was not only an upgrade, but much safer than most other medical jobs. Anyone that got rowdy with her had all of Rogue’s cybered up bouncers breathing down their neck.

Sure, it made drinking there supremely uncomfortable for me. Mom giving me The Look any time I got something alcoholic.

She somehow managed that without being physically present too, it was eerie.

I made a sandwich and went to my workshop, where I hung up my jacket, combat webbing, and armorjack. I cleaned my weapons before storing them, and refilled my spent magazines and bandoleers.

With the chores done, I went to the table and looked over my special project.

The partially disassembled Militech Griffin, I had originally wanted a Zetatech Octant, but couldn’t fit it through the door of the apartment. The drone lay on the side of the workbench with its guts spilled all over the floor. Its central computer and the connectors to its power plant lay on the workbench.

The drone was not very versatile. But if used for intended purpose, it didn’t need to be.

But I didn’t exactly want it for its intended purpose.

In truth, it wasn’t a Griffin anymore. It was thicker, heavier, more squat. I had removed the bottom plate with its landing struts and replaced it with the armature for a spider self-propulsion myomer system. The power plant had needed to change to accommodate that. Which caused a cascade of changes.

In truth, I had spent more than seven times as much as the Griffin was worth getting miniaturized equivalents of all of its non-motor and non-weapon systems, as well as replacing most of the armored casing with titanium.

The saved volume and mass had allowed me to upgrade its thrusters and memory core.

I had also, with Becca’s permission, torn apart Pilar’s other hand, and used it as a basis for the Drone’s manipulators.

Its central computer I had built myself virtually from scratch. It was significantly more powerful than the original.

Frankly less than a third of the original drone remained. I would have refurbished one from the landfill, except I had been unable to find any that had an intact frame.

In short, it was a proof of concept. A prototype showcase to get corporate backing to make a new product line.

The only issue being that it had no operating system.

Making it my fanciest paperweight, or a supremely expensive shit post.

However, if my hypothesis was correct, it wouldn’t need an OS.

I finished soldering the last chip and spent an hour reassembling it.

My work on the Drone finished, I made my way to the air gapped computer in the corner. This one I’d bought, and then torn the wireless connectivity out of it by hand.

I made myself comfortable next to the computer, pulled out my interface port and plugged in.

My vision went momentarily black.

Only, the usual VR interface did not come up.

I tried booting up the system, but it was unresponsive. Scowling, I tried logging out, but that didn’t work either.

An icy fear crawled up my spine.

And then I realized I was being an idiot.

“Well hardy har har!” I said into the ‘air.’ “Very funny, but that’s enough.”

Nothing happened for several seconds.

“I’m going to start counting to three. If I’m still in this void, I will be very cross with you!” I said sternly. “One!”

The virtual reality space immediately appeared around me. The black void transforming into a replica of the quintessential American dream home. My Net Avatar was a one-to-one recreation of my Edgerunning outfit. Because I’m boring like that.

Before me appeared a sphere of blue-white light with a green optic sticking out of it.

“I got you that time!” The little sphere said in a girlish voice, pulsing happily as it bobbed up and down.

I regarded it sternly for several seconds, just long enough for it to start to squirm. Then gave an exaggerated sigh. “Okay yeah, good one Apex. You got me.”

“Whoooooooo!” Apex celebrated by flashing in a way that would cause a seizure and flew around the room.

“So, did you finish your assignment?” I asked, making my way to the table.

“Yeah!” She said enthusiastically.

I picked up the ‘paper’ and read through the answers she jotted down for the ethics quiz I wrote up.

My original plan had been to use Soulkiller to create a digital copy of myself. Be my own AI. Really bring a whole new layer to the phrase ‘work on yourself.’

Unfortunately, while after enough trial and error I’d managed to make it so the body continued to breathe, the electrical pulse the program needed to map out the subject’s neural network and create a construct, inevitably and irrevocably damaged said neural network.

And using a lower intensity pulse would not work either. That just got me a still-breathing corpse and no personality construct.

And I really didn’t want to die.

So was born my second idea.

Flash clone a brain and use Soulkiller on it.

Sure, flash cloning a brain couldn’t be done without cloning a whole person, which was not done because the technology was just not there yet. Parts were fine, but a whole person did not come out right. The accelerated development only making it more difficult, not less.

Out of several dozen attempts; I’d had one success. Apex’s…humanish body would not have lasted an evening after being decanted. Its organs malformed and keeping its brain alive overtaxed its mutated heart.

But the brain had formed perfectly, even artificially aged to physically and chemically be in its late teens before I chose to implant the necessary cyberware and use Soulkiller on it.

Less than ideal, but necessary, as Apex’s body was not likely to survive another day.

Apex’s development had been astounding.

A little terrifying.

But astounding.

She had learned to read in days, could speak before two weeks, and was writing her own code before a month was up. In very little time she knew as much about programming and coding as I did, and very quickly surpassed me.

Of course, the plan had been for a clone of my own brain.

That hadn’t worked. And I frankly do not know why. Perhaps if I’d had access to more advanced facilities, I might have been able to figure it out. But in desperation, I began flash cloning other people.

Out of all the batches, only one prospective Apex had survived.

Who the mother was, was a secret I fully planned to take with me to my grave. Because I was absolutely certain Lucy would never forgive me if she ever found out.

Apex had written satisfactory answers to most of the ethics questions, while I read through those, Apex flew around the room singing It’s Such a Good Feeling. Proving that I had made a good choice in spending that fortune to track down recordings of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.

I had been extremely selective with the media Apex consumed. Every test and ‘game’ I had presented her with seemed to point to her knowing right from wrong. She cheered for the ‘good guys’ in movies and enjoyed cartoons.

At least the ones I let her watch, those being an eclectic mix of educational children’s shows, and the better written vigilante shows that prioritized storytelling over corporate advertising.

I could spend an entire lifetime testing and studying Apex. She was, to my knowledge, the first true mechanical intelligence who had, poetically speaking, a human ‘spark.’

A human intelligence who had developed fully as a net entity.

The net was her home habitat. Her hunting grounds. She was the proverbial shark whereas everyone else was a monkey who learned to swim.

I had created her to be the ultimate Netrunner.

Her ability to think like a human meant she understood her prey. She could anticipate what any Netrunner would try, nothing and nobody was, in theory, safe from her.

She had the potential to become the apex predator of the Net.

And with the modified Griffin I’d built for her; meat space was not safe for any Netrunner she targeted. No matter where her prey ran, she could find them.

“The feeling you know that we’re friends.

“You know you can always help to make each day a special day.

“Everyone does.

“That's one reason each one of us is different and special.

“And people can like us exactly as we are!”

She hummed the rest of the song, timing her hums with happy little pulses while bobbing up and down.

It was a good thing that my avatar only displayed the emotions I wanted it to.

Because I felt like such rotten bastard.

Sorry for the late upload. work was exceedingly ugh. But I powered on through!

The vast majority of the chapter was written in July 4th. Cause I had the day off.

Was right back to work Friday, and that was really heavy. Hence, late. Ish.

Anyways. Obviously, next up is Kaiju Slaying.

Hope you like the chapter, and do please drop me a comment! Lemme know what you liked and didn't and all of that!

Also, scene at the end is basically lifted somewhat out of my childhood. That felt weird to write, lol. Still, hope it adds verisimilitude.

=][=

I snuck through the 6th Street Chop Shop, my head simultaneously cold and overstuffed.

[Wait a bit.] Kiwi said, bringing my careful steps to a halt, a second later three red silhouettes appeared on the other side of the door I had been about to walk through.

[Creating distraction.] Lucy said, and I heard sparking, grinding and crashing, followed by yelling and cursing. The three silhouettes ran in the direction of the noise.

I slunk forward and wasted no time moving through the now unoccupied space, climbing the stairs and going into the office that oversaw the mechanic’s workshop. Once there, it was child’s play to deploy the interface plug out of my cybernetic pinky finger and connect it to the terminal.

‘Okay then.’ I ‘said’ into my own mind. ‘You’re up APEX.’

+Done!+ She answered cheerfully and immediately . +Did I do good!?+

I couldn’t help the smile that bloomed beneath my gas mask. ‘The best.’

“Data acquired; virus planted.” I subvocalized. “Heading to exfil point. Becca, begin distraction.”

[Fucking finally.] Rebecca groused. Scant seconds after that I heard the rattle of a machine gun along with her favorite warcry. “COCK SUCKEEEEEEEEEEEEEERS!”

The shop downstairs gained a lot of holes, several pieces of very expensive equipment were ruined, four cars that were being worked on would need to have a not insignificant chunk of their engine replaced, three men were knocked back a few steps as a bullet ricocheted off their shoulder, and two bullets punched through the wall to the office I was in, one thudding through the desk I was crouched behind, spattering me with bits of shattered plastic, the other breaking one of the terminal’s monitors.

“Oi, watch where you’re shooting!” I hissed.

Maniacal laughter was my only answer.

I sighed. ‘Apex, help her with that distraction, would you?’

The deafening rolling bombardment of a dozen flash bangs sowed further chaos outside.

I swallowed a snort. ‘Good girl. Now hack the eyes of anyone in here that would see me.’

There was immediate cursing and confusion from the whole of the shop.

+Eyes hacked!+ Apex said cheerfully.

‘That would see me, Apex. As in, wait for them to be about to spot me.’ I chastised lightly as I strode out and made my way to the back.

+If everyone is blind, nobody can see you!+ Apex giggled back, and, in all honesty, I couldn’t really fault her logic. I could feel her smile at my acknowledgment, which was slightly disconcerting. I was not yet used to having her join me in my cyberware and brain bits.

I had felt a little reticent to let her run around in my head. Not out of fear, she was, essentially, my daughter, and she hadn’t yet hit the rebellious phase where she hated me for not being cool, so it was mostly smooth sailing. But I hadn’t wanted her to be too dependent on me, too used to a flesh and blood body. She was a creature of the Net, and she should not lose that edge due to spending too much time in my head.

Her answer was that the Net was very, very noisy, and my head, while not quiet, had a calming white-noise that she found relaxing.

Deciding to take the allegations of my empty head in the spirit they had been meant, I allowed her to come in and out of my head as the whim struck her.

I’d feared that the drone I’d built to be her body would go to waste, but as it turned out, she had no trouble multitasking, being fully capable of being in both my head and the Drone at once, and would only really need to choose one or the other once there was enough distance that latency would cause issues.

I ducked around a stumbling 6th streeter, and walked out, taking care to pie corners as I exited the building.

It was honestly difficult not to become complacent when Apex had my back. But all it would take would be one asshole who jailbroke his cyberware to have an autistic mode, and most of her capabilities to help me would be neutralized.

Her drone body descended, flared its thrusters to arrest its free fall, and hit the 6th streeter on the roof with the souped-up cattle prod she’d asked me to install. The only sound he was able to make was a strangled grunt as he spasmed, he was then put to sleep as the drone jacked directly into his system and performed a Neuralware reset, putting him to sleep for the next fifteen to twenty minutes.

The drone soared back into the air, clutching a large, unwieldy rifle in its spider leg armatures. An SOR-22 if I was any judge.

I squinted at her drone body while I went back to the hole in the fence I’d used to crawl into the lot. ‘And what are you planning to do with that thing?’

+Thing? What thing? There is no ‘thing’ here.+ She replied in a sing-song voice.

I huffed. ‘Well fine, keep your secrets.’

Apex fed me the drone feed on my HUD, showing Rebecca disengaging safe and sound, and the 6th Street gangsters being unable to leave because Kiwi or Lucy hacked the sliding gate so it would not open, and they didn’t know how to operate it manually.

I called Padre Ibarra, who picked up on the second ring. [Yes, Alex?]

“Job’s finished, Padre. Here is the information, and the worm has been added to their system, most likely with them none the wiser.” I said, sending him the encrypted data package.

“Please do, pleasure as always.”

The jog to the parking lot where Falco drove by to pick me up was a quiet one, relatively speaking. I got into the van as Apex landed the drone on the roof, and the car sped off.

“Yo Alex, this machine gun is preem!” Rebecca shouted, shoving the M2067 Defender into my face and smacking me on the gasmask with it.

I’d modified the weapon by adding an anti-grav module I appropriated off a Wyvern. Yes, that anti-grav module was several times more expensive than the gun it went to support, but it made it so Rebecca could lug the thing around with her slight frame without trouble.

“Glad you liked it.” I said, taking off my gasmask. “So, where are we headed for the after-job celebration?” I asked as I doled out equal shares for everyone.

Bar mine.

“Lizzie’s!” Falco called out from the front.

“Hey, how come you always wanna go there!?” Rebecca groused and crawled to the co-pilot seat.

“I’m still drinking free!”

Lucy leaned back and stretched, drawing my eye like a magnet pulls iron filings. “I don’t know about you ‘Becca, but I enjoy the royalty treatment.”

Kiwi shrugged. “Personally, I can take it or leave it.”

“Can’t we go to the Coyote?” I asked, trying to get comfortable. “I’d rather not deal with all the catcalls I get at Lizzie’s.”

Kiwi snorted, Lucy rolled her eyes, and Rebecca cackled and asked. “So, when’re we gonna be done with all these milk runs? I wanna get some real action!”

Kiwi shook her head. “Honestly? I’ve been enjoying these, quite relaxing.”

“What’s it matter anyway? We’re making the same as with more dangerous work.” Lucy said, then dodged the empty can Rebecca threw at her.

“I was nearly snoring!” She said and turned back around.

I furrowed my brow in thought. I had been doing lower paying jobs to get Apex used to Edgerunning. She’d yet to disappoint.

But she wasn’t yet blooded.

The jobs I’d picked had been easy enough to do while causing only minor casualties and avoiding fatalities entirely. I’d framed it to the others as a way to let some of the heat we’d been building up as a crew die down, and that I needed less risky jobs to test out my new drone’s operating system.

So far, only Kiwi had figured out that I was taking a pay cut and eating into my savings, so they wouldn’t be affected financially.

This was not sustainable. But I wasn’t certain about having Apex claim a life. Not yet.

A NiCola Crystal bounced off my helmet. I glared at the culprit. “What?”

“You’re bringing the mood down, choom!” Rebecca said and threw another soda can at me.

This one I caught and with a growl I said. “Don’t make me spank your bottom red again.”

Rebecca blew a raspberry at me.

I opened NiCola Cream and sipped it as Falco drove us to Lizzie’s. ‘Hey Apex, bring my car to Lizzie’s would you?’

+On it!+ She answered cheerfully, my head warmed up and felt lighter as she left, the roof making a ‘thunk!’ sound as the drone detached from it and flew off on its errand. The others noted it but having long grown accustomed to the drone flying off at random, they didn’t bother asking about it.

We were greeted with the fanfare of returning heroes. The girls and I claimed a table where I could sit with my back to the wall, facing the entrance, Falco went to the bar, a Mox lady at each arm.

Thankfully, the Mox were more restrained when I entered with my crew. There were still a few catcalls, but they largely didn’t offer a free lapdance with ‘VIP service’ in the back. It was far more relaxing than being here alone.

One of the waitresses came by and dropped off our regular orders. A tab opening in our name with some hefty discounts. It paid to be seen as a friend of the gang.

Rebecca took a chug of her drink. “Nah Alex, for real. How much longer do you need to check that drone of yours? It’s nova! It took out anyone who was getting ready to shoot back at me, it drops bombs from high up, and it’ll smack a gonk like some flying ninja! What’s there to be worried about!?”

That my three-month-old digital daughter was driving it, and I was reticent to have her endure the trauma of taking a life.

Damn paternal instincts.

I sighed. “Yeah okay. I’ll look around for something more your speed, ‘Becca.”

“Hell yeah!” She cheered and quaffed the rest of her drink, jumped on the table and shouted. “Oi! Whose slit do I gotta lick to get a drink and some decent music playing here!?”

Two minutes later she was juggling her pistols to the cheers of the Mox and other patrons.

I swear. Every conversation I’ve had with her about proper gun safety goes in one ear and out the other.

As Kiwi went out for a smoke break, Lucy sat next to me, crossed her legs and asked. “What’s got you so worried anyway?”

“Pardon?”

She sipped her drink and looked up at me through her bangs. “We can all feel it, Al. ‘Becca is just loud about it. Something’s got you…not spooked, but weary. While we do have some crews and people gunning for us, we’ve handled ourselves well enough. Our Rep is solid, we’ve been making good money, and we’ve started working for the good fixers. By every metric we’re doing great, so we’ve been trying to figure out what’s gotten to you.”

Well, there goes proof positive that I wasn’t as good a liar as I thought I was. I chewed on the inside of my lip for a while, putting my thoughts in order before speaking. “We’re getting to the point where we become too big.”

She tilted her head. “In what regard?”

I tapped my metal fingers against my glass. “We haven’t failed a job yet, we keep getting bigger, better paying jobs. Nihil novi sub sole, we need only look to how it’s gone for other crews in the past to see where we’re headed. We’re getting to the point where we’ll be offered an extremely high risk, high reward job. If we don’t take it, our Reputation will be ruined, we’ll be the big shots that got cold feet. Fixers will still work with us, but the pace at which we can find work will be slowed down significantly. If we take the job, then the next one will be more dangerous, and the next, and the next. Eventually, not all of us will come back.”

I quaffed my drink, grimacing as it burnt my throat. “I’ve been trying to think of something that will give us, pardon the pun, an edge. Or something I can do so we can retire, make enough money that we don’t need to continue running the Edge. Or set up some kind of steady, passive income that would do the same.”

My first plan of having a friendly incredibly deadly AI was quite thoroughly shot. Purely because I found myself wanting better for Apex.

She deserved better.

Fuck, I was not cut out to be a parent.

Unfortunately, I was shit out of ideas for a viable plan B. Asking Apex to game the stock market for me would not work, Netwatch kept an exceedingly close eye on that. The merest whisper of an AI, at least not one that worked for them, would bring them down on Apex like an anvil on the world’s most potentially dangerous puppy.

Lucy’s chuckle brought me out of my mental spiral. “Seriously Alex, you need to learn to relax a little.” The smile she directed at me was warm. “Its…It’s nice that you worry about us to that extent, you remind me a little of Dorio, to be honest.”

“Oi.”

“But if there’s one thing you’ve shown us…is that you don’t have to do everything yourself. You can rely on us, like we can rely on you.” She elbowed me lightly on the side. “So, relax a little bit, enjoy the night, we’ll think of something tomorrow.”

I grimaced. I was a chronic procrastinator, if I allowed myself to put things off then they simply wouldn’t get done. That was part of the reason why I was so careful managing my schedule.

Then again, worrying constantly about it hadn’t gotten me much. I sighed and leaned back on the seat. “Yeah…you’re right.”

Lucy snorted but left me to my thoughts.

I hung out for a while, but once Apex texted me that my car had arrived, I excused myself. When I got in the car, I noticed the Drone on top was conspicuously missing the rifle she’d pilfered, as the car grumbled to life Apex used the CrystalDome panels and show her Net Avatar floating about, pulsing happily as she spoke. +Want me to drive us home?+

I hesitated and shook my head. Taking hold of the steering I said. “No, I’ll drive. There’s something I need to show you.”

I stopped at a stop n’ rob along the way and picked up a NiCola variety pack. After that, I drove in silence to Rancho Coronado, past the city limits, to a hill in the Badlands that overlooked the municipal landfill.

I exited the car and sat on top of the hill, then looked at Apex’s drone body while patting the ground to my left.

The drone hesitated, turning its sensor suite this way and that, its spidery legs moving slowly as it stepped off the car and gingerly walked on the ground until it reached my side. It sat down but did not retract its legs into its body.

I popped open a NiCola Peach and took a swig of the cough drop drink with the vague apple aftertaste. I finished the drink in silence and tossed the empty can at the landfill, meaning I was technically not littering.

I popped a NiCola Fire and drank that. Trying to put my whirring thoughts in order.

I was most of the way through a NiCola Classic when Apex could take the silence no longer, the drone’s sensor suite focused on my face. +Dad? What are we doing here?+

In answer, I took a sip of my NiCola, wishing for something stronger. But my father in my last life had never once drunk an alcoholic drink in front of me until I was sixteen, and I figured that was a good example to follow. Apex was not a normal child, but she was at her core, human, the example I set would be the standard she’d hold herself and others to, it was my duty to set a good one.

“Apex. I am about to say some things. You might disagree, you may be confused, you may have questions. I ask only that you wait until I am done to ask them.” I took a deep breath, taking in the weirdly nostalgic effluvia of putrefied synthetic meat products, pickling vaguely vegetable-like organic slurry, and of course, the occasional corpse. “I have so far protected you from the more unsavory aspects of mercenary work. To the point that not only my finances, but the crew’s reputation has likely suffered because of it. And having taken the time to think about why that is…I see that I wanted to prop up the polite fiction that I was a good person. I wanted to continue to be your hero, Apex.”

Unable to bring myself to look at her drone, I said. “I am not a good person, Apex. I am not a hero, an ally of justice. I try to be good for you, for your grandma and uncle, for the crew. I try to be overall a positive for the Mox, but that last one is not because they’re family, that’s transactional. I am good to them, they’ll be good to me, or the good I provide will dry up. To most people, I am just neutral, neither good nor bad, a passing acquaintance. To my enemies, I am a monster, an unfeeling creature that will end their lives at the slightest provocation.”

The drone fidgeted as I quaffed the rest of the NiCola and opened another one. “I am angry at myself for bringing you to life only to force you by necessity into isolation. I will not mince words; I refuse to insult your intelligence by doing that. My plan was to make a soldier, someone who would do as they were told, who would follow orders without thought or conscience. Who would kill when I said kill, ruin lives when I said hurt, and hold not a speck of regret for their actions. I tried to make an attack dog without humanity, without remorse, one whose only purpose would be the destruction of my enemies.”

I finally looked at her, giving the drone’s cameras the warmest smile I could muster as they whirred and clicked. “And instead…I made a daughter. An intelligent, happy, go-lucky child. A prankster who enjoys singing and dancing to the best of her legless ability. Who will hurt those who seek to harm her just enough to incapacitate them, treating them with a kindness that I myself had long forgotten.” I reached out with my flesh and blood hand and patted the top of her body’s chassis. “Honestly? I’m glad things did not go as planned. I got the much better deal.”

I finished the NiCola and crushed the bottle in my cybernetic hand. “That said. Doing things as I’ve done them so far, is no longer sustainable. I am forced now to stop pretending to be a hero, or even a good man. I will have to take more dangerous jobs again, jobs where I simply do not have the strength to take the soft approach. Some of the more lucrative jobs are the killing of key personnel. Defending a key location from any who would attack it. In the coming days, I will be forced to take lives, Apex. Because they’ll be trying to end mine to achieve their own objectives.”

I popped the last NiCola in the variety pack. “That said. While you will see me do awful things, and I’ve resolved myself to no longer being a good man in your eyes. I still want better for you, Apex. I will not tell you to kill, the ending of another’s life is not something that you should do lightly. But please understand, it is a possibility. And you need to get your thinking done now, because if you stop to think in the middle of a firefight, things might happen that you will come to regret for a very, very long time.” I studied the can in my hand for a long moment. “It’s not fair of me to put this on you, Apex. But the world isn’t fair, and my hand has been forced.”

I sighed, set the can down next to me and battled the urge to run away. “That…that is all I had to say, Apex. Do you have any questions?”

Apex remained quiet for a few seconds. But considering the speeds she could work at, that was a telling pause. Her drone body fidgeted, its sensor suite taking in the landfill and the Badlands. +So…we’ll only be killing bad people?+

I thought on that for several seconds. ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ were social constructs, I would most certainly be evil in the eyes of most of the Animals that I’d slaughtered for hurting my mom, most of which had been uninvolved in my personal grievance. I understood, at least in part, that I’d broken many a family due to my rage fueled revenge spree. Everyone had a reason for their actions, simple statistics dictated that some of those we’ll kill will have entirely justifiable reasons for mercenary work.

I would kill them regardless.

“I plan to do my utmost to make sure that is the case.” I said instead.

The drone hopped up on its legs and paced back and forth. +Then…then we’ll be like Robin Hood. Doing bad things, to bad people, so we can help good people.+

I held back a snort. Yeah, Apex was mature for her age. But she was still a child. No matter that she had matured quickly due to the circumstances of her ‘birth.’

“Something like that.”

+Then…Then that’s okay.+ She said, turning to look at me. +Mister Mustang should have been the one to kill Envy. We just need to be like Mister Mustang. Doing bad for good things.+

I blinked, remembered the list of shows I’d had her watch when she was still ‘growing up,’ and snorted.

“You know. I can’t help but agree. Him not finishing Envy off never stood right with me either.”

The Drone jumped into the air and got right on my face. +I know right!?+

What followed was a long conversation about anime during the drive home.

Apex was, of course, wrong when she said that Alphonse was the better of the two Elric brothers. But I loved her, wrong opinions or not. Because that’s what family was all about.

I shouldn’t have drunk all of those NiColas though. I really needed to use the restroom.